A concentric circle worn into the surface platter is a typical head crash indicator. Who identified the concentric ring worn into the platter? Is the drive still available? Because on its own, the concentric ring worn or etched into the platter is a nothing.
They need to see who reported this and find out how they knew and why they knew, both the scratch and that it was Lois Lerners drive. I wouldn’t expect a common broken hard drive to undergo scrutiny before it was destroyed — unless it was specifically requested to try and recover the data.
Thing the ring they found was off center. Kinda hard to nail center accurately with a hammer blow.