Its been 11 years since the hard drive went missing. There is every possibility that the hard drive must have been recycled, destroyed, or at the bottom of the dumpsite and you just can not tell the exact dumpsite it is. This, I think, might likely make it difficult for a search.
~snip~
Of course, there is a great possibility that even if the HDD is found, the data on it will be completely or partially destroyed, so that this whole story could eventually end unhappily, but still, finding it could in some way help the owner to finish that chapter of his life and move on.
What many people don't know, and James admitted in an interview, that in addition to the alleged BTC, that HDD also contains the real IP address of Satoshi Nakamoto. He claims that he was one of the first to mine BTC and that's why his HDD has that information.