No hard drive installed

[Robert425]

I am guessing it is time to get a new laptop but I thought I would ask the question anyway.  Almost exactly a year to the date I bought my HP Pavilion x360 15-CR0037wm I get a blue screen in Windows and then my laptop reboots and gives me the option if pressing F2 to run the system diagnostics.  I pressed F2 and it asked if I wanted to do Memory Test, Hard Drive Check, change the Language or Exit.  I ran selected Hard Drive Check.  It then gave me the option of doing a Quick Check or Extensive Check.  I first selected Quick Check.  The first time it just rebooted and gave me the option of pressing F2.

The second time (and every time after) I did the Quick Check and I get a message, "No hard drive installed.  Please check that the power and data cables are connected properly."

I am not sure if I should try to pull it apart to see if, in fact, it is a loose cable or if this means my hard drive is fried and there's nothing I can do about it.  I looked and HP no longer sells a replacement HDD for this laptop.

I would really love it if there was some way I can salvage the data on this HDD.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@Robert425 

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the old PC
2) If you have a PC with a spare hard drive connector, then connect the laptop drive to that. If you only have a notebook PC, then you will need to purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit (like the one illustrated below)

3) Connect the old drive to a working PC,using that adapter if it is a laptop
4) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.

If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/

[Robert425]

Thank you.  I'll give that all a try.