British Man’s Odds of Finding Bitcoin Hard Drive in Landfill: A Mere 0.00000011%

The likelihood of retrieving a hard drive from a landfill and extracting data from it is nearly zero. This conclusion was reached by Mark Hall, a specialist at Business Waste, while commenting to The Block on the search initiative by Briton James Howells, who lost access to 7500 BTC (approximately $666 million at current prices).

In 2013, a hard drive containing the keys to Howells’ wallet was mistakenly thrown into a rubbish bin and subsequently taken to the Newport Docksway landfill in Newport along with other waste. Since then, he has made attempts to recover the device.

In 2021, Howells found investors and offered city authorities $72 million to search for the drive in the landfill. He also devised an operation plan using X-ray scanning and AI, and later decided to employ two Spot robot dogs from Boston Dynamics.

The main obstacle to Howells’ initiative was resistance from the municipal government. Officials denied him access to the landfill, citing the danger of excavations to participants and local residents.

In 2023, the enthusiast filed a lawsuit against the city, demanding either the right to search or compensation for the lost bitcoins (over $500 million at that time). The court refused to hear the case.

According to Business Waste experts, approximately 57,592 tonnes of waste are sent to UK landfills annually. Assuming the hard drive weighs about 700 grams, this equates to 82 million devices annually. Considering the accumulated waste over 11 years, Howells’ chances of success are 1 in 902 million or 0.00000011%, Hall estimates.

“The hard drive has endured exposure to the elements, leaching, temperature, and compaction—we highly doubt it can be recovered, so we estimate the probability of its recovery at 0%,” the specialist added.

He emphasized that the device is likely severely damaged, and the excavation procedure involves significant risks—among the waste are sharp rusty objects and hazardous materials like asbestos, the structure of the landfill can shift and cause landslides, and flammable gases and toxic chemicals are emitted from the depths.

Howells categorically rejected the specialist’s arguments.

“I am absolutely sure they are not high-level data recovery experts who have previously worked on NASA projects,” he noted.

The enthusiast stressed that damage to the casing and internal parts of the hard drive does not matter; the main thing is that the metal disk where the data is stored should be at least partially preserved. He clarified that a 2009-era bitcoin wallet occupies about 32 KB, and the key itself is about 3–4 KB. 

Such a volume of information can be stored in one sector on the disk, thus increasing the probability of recovery. Howells added that his team only needs to recover half of the key; the rest can be guessed.

According to his findings, at the time the hard drive was taken to the landfill, compaction was not used; waste was simply dumped, leveled, and covered with soil. Moreover, specialists hired by Howells managed to narrow the search area to a section with 100,000 tonnes of waste out of a total mass of 1.4 million tonnes.   

“1 in 902 million is a number some clown pulled out of their backside—and they couldn’t justify it in any way, even if they tried. […] No one can predict the exact condition of the hard drive. Tell your waste disposal experts that I’ll let them know when we find it; everything else is pure speculation,” Howells commented on Business Waste’s statements.

In Hall’s opinion, the enthusiast could find more productive ways to use his time.  

“If Mr. Howells had simply bought more bitcoins when he realized the original hard drive was lost, he could have already made a fortune,” the specialist noted.

In February 2025, it became known about officials’ plans to close and seal the landfill. Howells announced that he intends to purchase the site with investor support. As a backup plan, he aims to launch a crypto project dedicated to finding the hard drive, with its own NFT or utility token.

Back in November 2024, a popular Brazilian YouTuber lost the seed phrase to a Ledger wallet containing 4 BTC.