A client recently engaged our data recovery service after encountering data loss from her 2.5-inch 1TB Lenovo external hard disk drive. The drive had been functioning normally until she began to notice that some files were missing over time. As the drive is still accessible, the client continues to use it as usual. Unfortunately, with continued use, more files appeared to vanish. At that point, she decided to stop and seek professional assistance to find out what was going wrong, and wanted to recover all the missing files.

Diagnosis and Recovery Approach

After receiving the device, our data recovery team conducted a detailed assessment. The findings indicated that the drive suffered from both hardware degradation and logical corruption. These two types of issues are often linked. In this case, the hard drive showed a health status of about 60 percent and contained a high number of bad sectors. It appeared that the operating system had detected some errors and attempted to repair the volume. However, during that process, additional data loss occurred. Due to the existing bad sectors, the operating system's repair attempt causes data loss, resulting in missing folders and files.

The outcome of the Recovery

Our recovery specialist successfully cloned the drive manually and filtered through all bad sectors. The data extraction process was performed using a stable clone. Due to some data being saved in those unrecoverable bad sectors, the metadata structure was partially corrupted. However, we were able to retrieve a large portion of the client's files. Some data was recovered in RAW format because the folder structure and path could not be fully reconstructed. An online data verification session was arranged for the client to confirm the recovered data. She accepted the data, and all the data was then safely transferred to a new hard drive purchased from us.

Our Recommendation

This case highlights how physical issues like bad sectors can quickly lead to deeper logical problems when the device is still in use. If your external hard drive begins to behave unusually or you notice files disappearing, it is critical to stop using the drive immediately. Continued access can worsen the damage and complicate recovery efforts. If you suspect data loss, we recommend seeking help from a professional data recovery centre as soon as possible to preserve your valuable files.