STORRS, Conn. -- A student bought a computer hard drive and discovered that it contains personal information about people with ties to the University of Connecticut.

Ryan Green, a junior at UConn, bought the drive at the UConn Co-op for $200 and discovered it already contained information.

"I opened it up and it wasn't blank, it was actually halfway full," Green said.

Authorities continue to investigate to determine how the information got on the drive and how it might have been used.

Green found about 10,000 private pictures, 10,000 Microsoft Word documents and even some sensitive personal information like credit cards and driver's licenses.

"It's multiple people's data, entire computers," Green said.

Green called the Channel 3 I-Team and UConn Police. Channel 3 I-Team reporter Eric Parker reported investigators initially seemed disinterested and told Green to return the drive to the co-op.

Then, Green told police exactly what he found. Campus police then seized the drive and launched an investigation.

Hard Drive Contained Images Of Credit Cards, Licenses

"For some people, it was just a few pictures here and there, nothing too intense. Other people, it was pretty much their entire life," Green said.

Authorities said the information belongs to 10 people, all who have a connection to the university. Police said early indications suggest that all had their computers serviced at the co-op between November and March.

"We're currently in the process of contacting the people whose information was on the hard drive," UConn Police Maj. Ronald Blicher said.

Parker reported the range of information on the drive varied from college papers to pictures of a toga party. One folder on the drive even appears to be a copy of UConn basketball star Renee Montgomery's computer.

Professor's Entire Life Documented On Hard Drive

One of the people with their entire life on that drive included a UConn professor who asked to remain anonymous. The drive contained images of the professor's credit cards to a pilot's license to folders full of his tax records.

The professor said he intentionally put much of the information on his computer for safekeeping while he was traveling outside the country.

"It's all of the personal identification you would need to do traveling or purchases or anything else," the professor said.

The professor said he had his computer repaired at the co-op last month. He said he approved the technicians making a copy of his hard drive so they could fix it.

"You would expect that it would be taken care of afterwards and eliminated. You would just expect that as part of the service," he said.

The professor said he will now encrypt everything on his work and personal computers.

Co-Op Policies Under Review

Whoever had access to the drive, other than Green and the Channel 3 I-Team, remains unknown. Police said they don't expect the investigation to drag on, saying they are working with staff from the university's information technology department.

Parker reported that one possibility police are investigating is that this is simply an honest mistake. Authorities said they will look into the policies of the co-op to see if the policies need to be changed.

"Certainly, the possibility of the information going beyond that is one of the things we'll always take a look at, but there's no indications that the information has gone beyond that one particular hard drive," Blicher said.

Police said it's possible that when computers were repaired at the co-op, backup copies of their contents were made. If those copies weren't destroyed, it's possible they were accidentally sold to Green.

While it's not as sinister as identity theft, it still has other students on edge. Julie Amenta just had her laptop repaired and said she wonders who might have seen her pictures.

"Just viewing my things is unnerving to me," said Amenta, a junior at UConn.

The UConn Co-Op told the Channel 3 I-Team that it does not sell used hard drives, saying the staff is cooperating fully with police.