Can't see the hard drive. hp laptop.

[kosmd]

I have an hp 14-bs0xx. It came with 4gb RAM and 30gb Hard drive. For the last 2 years, I couldn't use it anymore  because the memory filled up quickly and I can't do much with it. So, I opened it today to see if I can get the storage capacity upgraded but I couldn't locate the hard drive. I can see the ram but I can't see the hard drive. Am I missing anything? Also, can I just remove the metal plate that is under the cable (bottom left of the pic) and put a ssd in place instead? I'm no tech guy, so please advise. Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Your notebook came with a 32 GB eMMC drive which is a small SD card flash memory type drive that is an integral part of the motherboard.

It cannot be upgraded or replaced very easily.

You would need to replace the motherboard with one listed in chapter 3 of the service manual that has the larger capacity 64 GB eMMC drive

HP 14 Laptop PC (Intel)HP 14g Laptop PCHP 14q Laptop PC Maintenance and Service Guide

I would not recommend investing any money in a project like that.

[kosmd]

Thanks a million for your reply. That got me situated.
That model wasn't a good buy at the end. Next purchase, I'll pay more attention to the storage capacity than to the price. This one didn't last a year before memory got full. Now, it can't receive any update. So, even though it's still operational, I can't do much with it. Thanks again for your response. Very much appreciated.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The only way I know of where you can keep using the notebook is to periodically clean install W10 on it.

It is a pain to do that, but at least you will have more free space.

Always keep your files on a SD card and have that in the SD card slot at all times.

You can make a plain W10 installation flash drive with the media creation tool from the link below.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

Boot from the installation media and when you get to the part of the installation that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Click Next, and W10 will install.

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your notebook's support page.

HP 14-bs000 Laptop PC Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support

After you install the drivers, go to the C:\ drive and delete the SWSetup folder where the driver files were unpacked to.

That will free up space.

Other than the most essential programs you may need, I recommend installing this one free disk cleaning utility.

Wise Disk Cleaner - Free Disk Cleanup and Defrag Tool (wisecleaner.com)

Also, run the Windows disk cleanup utility once a week or so, and click on the Cleanup system files button.

The program will run again and when the window reappears, check all of the boxes to delete the files.

Using the above approach should allow you to use the notebook for around 2 years or so until the drive fills up again and you repeat the process.

For obvious reasons, HP quit making PC's with those tiny 32 GB drives and increased the storage to a minimum of 64 GB, which is still only borderline adequate.

The other problem is even though the eMMC drives are slightly faster than a mechanical hard drive, they are considerably slower than a SATA SSD or NVMe SSD.

[kosmd]

Very resourceful reply. Thanks. I'll definitely try that today. I'll probably be slower in completing each step, with me not being a non-tech person, but I'll make sure I follow all the steps. Thanks again.  eMMC with that low memory is not great at all, I agree. I'd have preferred the other two options which would have been way easier to upgrade, indeed, and faster. Best Regards.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.

[kosmd]

I tried this method. but got stuck on the w10 copy. The system didn't give me the option to save on a USB drive, and the PC drive is full.  I already deleted all personal files and data + all temp files, but the memory is basically still full. barely a couple hundred MB left. So I couldn't move further.

Same issue when I try to reset the PC to manufacturer default. system is asking me to free up 5GB from C drive before continuing.   

t became a catch22.

So I thought about this solution: I removed the metal piece that was blocking the sata hdd space. It freed up the space to put one there. If I insert a new 500GB Sata HDD in the allocated port, would it serve as an extension of the hard drive and solve the issue? I realize there might be some setting adjustment in the system but i might figure that out later, if that can be a path to resolving this isue, otherwise i'm stuck. Please let me know of what you think of the idea.

I

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I think that is a great idea if the port is not disabled, and the only way you will be able to find that out is to try it.

Too bad you don't have a drive on hand you can test it with, because if you did, and it worked, you can buy a 500 GB 2.5" SSD and use that as your boot drive.

[kosmd]

I have a drive on hand. It's  in my old  Toshiba  laptop.  because it is a working Toshiba and I don't know much about setting, I'm affraid if I plug it in, the setting in the old drive might compromise the hp one (is that true? just don't know).
Anyway, it's a 2.5". If I plug it in and the laptop recognizes it, that means the port is not disabled right?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

There should be no problem plugging any hard drive in that port.

It should have no effect on the eMMC drive.

If the port works, you should be able to install Windows on the Toshiba drive and see if it boots from it.