HP Envy x360 Hard Drive Flex Cable

[apunkrockmonk]

A co-worker purchased this HP Envy x360 in the Summer of 2016, pretty quickly he started having issues with the laptop booting reporting smart errors. He then sent the laptop in to HP to be repaired under warranty. They replaced either the hard drive, or the cable that attaches the hard drive to the motherboard.

After they returned the laptop to him, from what I understand the laptop still didn’t work properly at this point. Understandably he was defeated and didn’t feel it was worth wasting more time with HP support.

Fast forward to today and the laptop is no longer covered under warranty and still doesn’t function properly. He’s asked for my assistance with fixing the laptop, I replaced the hard drive with a new Samsung SSD, when I attempted to format the drive from a Windows PE environment the machine hung for a minute or two before the drive was no longer recognized. 

The drive would then not be recognized once again until a CMOS reset was performed on the machine, I also tested with a known good 2.5” HD and saw similar results. I inspected the Hard Drive flex cable that attaches the drive to the motherboard and it doesn’t appear damaged. At this point I’m out of options and I feel I need to replace that cable, if its not that cable I feel that would imply a larger issue with the motherboard itself.

Can anyone assist with figuring out where to purchase this cable, or assist with determining what the part number for the cable is? I wasted 30 minutes on the phone with HP support and they couldn’t tell me the part number or sell me the cable and in general didn’t seem to know what the heck I was talking about.

Needless to say the next time I’m asked by a colleague “What kind of laptop should I get?” my answer will surely be “Anything but an HP!”

[visruth · Accepted solution]

Part No: 856788-001
Description: CABLE, HDD

https://www.walmart.com/ip/856788-001-HP-Envy-X360-HDD-cable/295626693

Page 27: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05085451

Specs: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c05187565