Friday November 10 4:53 PM ET

Secret Weapon Info Missing at Lab

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have been disciplined for the disappearance and mysterious reappearance of two computer hard drives filled with top-secret information about nuclear weapons, officials said Friday. No one was fired.

Citing privacy rules, University of California spokesman Jeff Garberson declined to say who was disciplined or what type of discipline the workers faced, except to call it ``significant.'' He also would not say how many workers were disciplined.

The university manages the New Mexico nuclear weapons lab for the U.S. Energy Department.

Workers noticed the hard drives were missing from a vault in the lab's top-secret X Division as a wildfire moved onto lab property in early May, and the lab and surrounding community were evacuated.

A team member again could not find the hard drives once he was able to re-enter the vault May 22. Top lab officials were notified on June 1.

The hard drives were discovered June 16 behind a copy machine in an area that had been searched previously.

The hard drives, each slightly larger than a deck of cards, contain specifications that could be used to disarm a variety of nuclear weapons.

The university led the review of the incident, Los Alamos spokesman John Gustafson said. A separate FBI (news - web sites) investigation is continuing.