The BBC reported in November 2013 that Howells had generated 7,500 coins and that the hard drive was already worth millions of pounds. James Howell says his ex partner accidentally threw out a hard drive with 8,000 bitcoins in 2013, and he’s been trying to recover it ever since. The judge accepted the council’s argument that it owned the hard drive and that Howells was not entitled to retrieve it. In August 2025, Howells drew a clear line under the physical recovery effort. The hard drive itself had not been recovered.