“but I have no doubt there have been many sector by sector copies of it.”
Ok, then why were all the deleted files missed by everyone? It doesn’t pass the smell test to think no one tried to get those right off the bat.
We don’t know what those people who might have those copies are doing. We know there was a laptop. We know it got into government hands. And we know it passed through multiple hands and “cannot be found” right now...officially speaking.
There are copies out there. People had the laptop itself, and that without a doubt includes the guy who initially got it in his shop. When I heard he made a copy, I would bet money it was a sector by sector copy, because he likely knew his life (no melodrama here) might come to depend on it someday.
We can certainly disagree with what people may or may not have found on it, and I am in no way agreeing or disagreeing with what this guy says he found...just stating that it is possible.
What I see is possible is that he has it and was willing to talk about it, but there are possibly other people who have it but are not talking about it, even people on “our” side, for whatever reason. That’s all.
The point I was trying clumsily and with too many words to make was: We don’t know that those deleted files were missed by everyone.
Check out this thread-I think you would find it interesting...
It is an interview with the repair shop guy, and he has a bit of information that sheds a little light on the copies.
He said he had three copies before he even gave one to Giuliani, one for his dad to give to the FBI (they refused) one he sent to a friend for safekeeping, and one on the server in his shop.
He did say it took 24 hours to copy, which made me think that was a sector by sector copy, but he did say the computer had power problems, so, it isn’t definitive.
It seemed you would find the linked interview interesting.