Hard Drive not detected

[Tanmay_1898]

I got a windows activation error on my laptop a week ago after which I contacted my vendor and they told me that reinstalling windows would solve the issue. So they reinstalled Windows and the error got fixed. But the very next day as I was reinstalling some apps to the HDD it suddenly stopped showing me HDD on File Explorer. (To be noted that my OS is installed on SSD so there is no Boot-Up issue). At first, shutting down my laptop and turning it on did the trick but I was again facing the same issue. I contacted Microsoft assuming there may be some windows installation error and after running some tests they told me to re-install windows again after which my HDD stopped showing at all. I can't even find it in Device manager where earlier it was visible. My vendor is saying that I have to replace my Hard drive without performing any checks. Is there anything else I can do? Also, I tried a quick hard drive check by pressing f2 at startup. It gets stuck at Starting Quick check screen.

[WAWood]

@Tanmay_1898 

The HP specs for your model only show an HDD, 1TB; so did you add an SSD to it? 

Normally, when a laptop has both an SSD and an HDD, the SSD is used for Windows and applications, the HDD for personal data. If that is the case with yours and only the HDD is failing, that would explain why you are not getting boot issues.  

But unless you are installing apps and selecting the HDD, you should not be getting installation issues, either.

You really need to run drive diagnostics to check the health of the HDD.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu
3) Press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.
If the drive checks out OK, then report that and I can provide you options for reinstalling Windows on your PC.

[Tanmay_1898]

Yes I got ssd installed separately at the time of purchase of laptop. I tried both the methods you mentioned. using the first one I didn't get any diagnostic section as shown in that article. Using the second method I clicked f2 for system diagnostic in the menu and my laptop lagged for a few minutes and no process started. I finally turned off and restarted my laptop. Still issue not solved. Should I try removing ssd and have a factory reset done with windows installed on hdd if detected?