Hard Drive Error

[Glenn_M]

Upon startup, I received an error message stating my Hard Drive 6 (3F6) received an error and suggesting I press F6 for diagnostics. I did so and ran simple diagnostics against all disks. This resulted in a Hard Drive error on HD4. The error message returned was: M0DB0W-7399NG-QFFV6J-647C03.

A few comments on this. First, I have no HD6 and cannot relate 3F6 to any device revealed by using Disk Management (right-click on This PC in File Explorer and select Manage, then Disk Management). Second, I am presuming that HD4 is Disk3 since Disk Management starts with Disk0. Disk3 comes up as Unallocated and when I right-click on the drive name and select Properties, it tells me that it is a SanDisk SDSA6DM-016G-100 SCSI Disk, Device Bus Number 5, Target Id 0, LUN 0 (whatever the heck THAT means). Properties also tells me, "This device is working properly." When I try to initialize it, I get a "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)". So evidently it is NOT working properly.

So my questions are:

-- Does the 24-character code above say I'm getting a cyclic redundancy check error on Disc3?

-- If not, what does it mean?

-- Is there any way of fixing this error with software or (since it appears to be an SSD) do I have to have a hardware person look at it?

-- Can I ignore the error?

-- Did the SanDisk contain anything essential from HP and if so, what?

Thanks in advance for your comments and advice.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The error code translation is:  Hard Disk 4 Quick Test Failure.

Normally that means you have to replace the drive you got the error on.

[Glenn_M]

Thanks, Paul. Unfortunately, this "hard disk" appears to be a solid state drive that came with the computer. I suspect it is just a memory chip since it is defined as a "SanDisk" drive. That would make it pretty hard to replace. My main concern is: What was on it and is it essential to operating my computer?

Anybody?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

Looking at the product specs and parts list for your PC, you are correct.

It is a Sandisk mSata solid state 16 GB drive cache--one of the two part numbers listed.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=F9A63AV

It would be relatively to replace as it just screws down into a slot on the motherboard.

I believe it is used to accelerate the performance of the mechanical hard drive.

I would have no idea what was on it when it died.

You can do a search on what this technology does.  I found this article for example.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/everything-need-know-ssd-caching/

[Glenn_M]

Really good information, Paul. Thanks again.

Since this is a disk cache, the contents don't really matter since they change with each disk access. My concern before you informed me of its use was that it held some boot info or something like that.

You said, "It would be relatively to replace as it just screws down into a slot on the motherboard." I presume the word you omitted was "easy". I've done a cursory search for that SSD with no success. So I went into my BIOS and disabled it. It may slow down access to my primary drive but it seems to have solved (or avoided) my problem. That should last me until I can figure out how to replace it with some equivalent.

For the time being, I'll call this problem "solved" here on the community.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

You don't see anything like this on the motherboard? 

This is a picture of one of the Sandisk SSD actual part numbers listed in the parts list I posted (680966-001).

The other Sandisk mocel (724426-001) looks very much the same, except that it is blue.

[Glenn_M]

Actually, I had not looked inside the box. When I did, I found this.

So this is the culprit. It seems easy to get to. I'll look for an equivalent card since the exact part number didn't seen to be readily available on the Internet. I didn't try at the HP site, though.

Thanks. I had no idea what I should look for inside the box.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yep that's the one.

There are plenty of them on eBay.

Just search by the second part number I mentioned.  That's the blue one.