this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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[–] Baguette@lemm.ee 23 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It's also a futile attempt. In the off chance they even find it, that hard drive would be toast by then. In a landfill, that hard drive would prob be shattered and in pieces, not to mention probably corroded and unreadable.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Shattered? Very unlikely. Corroded? Maybe, but probably not since hard drives are well sealed.

They would just need a section of the platter to be readable, they area with the sector that has the data they need. Even if the platter was shattered it would be possible to read the block you need.

The chances are low but the reward is worth the effort.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Hard drives, except for helium-filled ones, actually have an air hole in them with a filter attached to it so they can keep enough air in the drive so the heads can properly fly over the disk surface. Completely possible that moisture ingress would be an issue after years of sitting in a landfill in who knows what. It is a darn tiny hole though.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yea but only one way to find out. Making massive assumptions when 700 mill is on the line seems dumb. Never give up.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 12 hours ago

Oh yeah, I'd still try too. Once rescued a phone from a saltwater beach. It sat there buried for 6 months ish in saltwater. Was able to extract all the data from the MicroSD card and find the owner to give them their lost pictures and such. Would still try, despite knowing the science.

Unrelated, f cell manufacturers for removing MicroSD card slots.

[–] Baguette@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago

I'd wager all the machine compacting and shredding they do at a landfill would render any harddrive broken. Maybe it survived, but after all these years, I highly doubt it survived being expoded to the elements anyways

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Have you ever seen a modern landfill? For one thing they crush the contents by constantly rolling over it with a steamroller with spiked wheels that’s designed to shred & compact the trash as much as possible. Then there’s corrosive materials in the garbage that mixes with rainwater to create a leechate that will corrode other garbage as it seeps through it.

I’d be shocked if a standard hard drive could survive a decade in such an environment.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 3 days ago

Well sure if it started off as bread

[–] Free_Opinions@feddit.uk 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's quite amazing how much data can be recovered from hard drives that have been even in fires. I think they recovered like 95% of the data from the hard drives on the challenger shuttle that blew up.

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I’m sure those drives were highly specialized and protected like the “black box” data & flight recorders in aircraft. They almost certainly weren’t off the shelf drives from Seagate or Western Digital…

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://bringingcolumbiahome.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/columbias-black-box/

Magnetic tape.

That was Columbia, not Challenger, but if they were still using tape in 2003, they were definitely not using desktop drives in 1986.