In theory one could have just fired up the machine, put the disks in and seen what was on them. This would have risked damage to the disks, hence the extreme measures here.
However, the task was not exactly huge. I wonder how big this ballooned out to, how many people were needed to work on the grant application to get the funding to approach the right people to get their permission to read the disks? Factor in the TV documentary crew and all the other hangers on, the experts in digital forensics, the art historians, the list could be endless!
I imagine that if the 'artworks' are genuine Mr Warhol was loathed to do anything creative with the new medium. Being a canny guy he probably thought he best stick to the Marilyn and soup themes making sure he put his name on everything so that in aeons hence there would be no doubt whatsoever that these were his definitive artworks.