Hard drive not detected after replacing battery

[Rohan2020]

I recently replaced the battery on my HP Pavilion 15t-bc000 CTO laptop as the old one was swollen and not in good health. I had previously installed a Crucial MX500 M.2 SSD to use as the main boot drive for the laptop alongside the existing hard drive (a 7200 RPM HGST drive) as a secondary storage drive. Before replacing the battery, both of them were working without any issues. But after replacing the battery, I realized that the hard drive was not showing up in either the file explorer or the disk management utility. I restarted the laptop to check for the drive in the UEFI hardware diagnostics, but it too showed only the SSD as a storage device. I opened up the back panel of the laptop to check if it was the wire connecting the hard drive was the issue. I plugged it out and back in. I ran the laptop while the back panel was open and found out that the hard drive was indeed spinning. The blinking light that indicates the hard drive was however not lighting.

I thought it might be the battery causing the issue. So I swapped the old battery in the laptop, but the hard drive still didn't show up.

I swapped the same hard drive with the one in my spare laptop (also an HP one albeit an older Pavilion G6). I used a Ubuntu live USB to boot up that laptop. The hard drive (a 5400 RPM HGST drive) was detected and I could access the files without any issues.

To rule out if it was an issue with the wire that connects the hard drive to the motherboard, I plugged the hard drive from the spare laptop into the main laptop. And surprisingly enough, it was detected! With all the partitions and files intact.

Next, I tested by taking out the SSD from the main laptop, and plugged only the hard drive in question to it. After booting the laptop with the same Ubuntu Live USB, I still couldn't find any indication that the hard drive was detected.

So far, I've also tried running the stoarge diagnostics in the HP UEFI hardware diagnostics and hard resetting the laptop (the one where you press and hold the power button). Unfortunately, nothing has worked.

To summarize the issue: my laptop doesn't detect its own hard drive but detects another even though the hard drive is functioning properly. What could possibly be causing this anomaly?

[KrazyToad]

@Rohan2020

Welcome to HP Community

I have gone through your Post and I appreciate all your efforts and expertise in troubleshooting this issue

Please restore the BIOS to default and check if it detects the hard drive

1. Turn off the computer and wait five seconds.

2. Press the Power button to start the computer and repeatedly press the F10 key to enter the BIOS setup menu.

3. On the BIOS Setup screen, press F9 to select and load the BIOS Setup Default settings.

4. Press F10 to Save and Exit.

5. Use the arrow keys to select Yes, then press Enter when asked Exit Saving Changes?

6. Follow the prompts to restart your computer.

Thank you

If the information I've provided was helpful, give us some reinforcement by clicking the "Solution Accepted" on this Post and it will also help other community members with similar issue.
 

[Rohan2020]

Thanks for the response.

I restored the BIOS several times but it didn't help. The hard drive is still not detected.

I recently got a SATA to USB adapter to connect the hard drive through the USB port. Surprisingly, it detected the hard drive and I could access the files.

I made an error on my original post. The hard drive in question (the one in my main laptop that is not being detected) is a 7200 RPM hard drive and the hard drive from the old laptop that was detected is a 5400 RPM hard drive. Could it be that the problem has anything to do with the difference?

[KrazyToad]

@Rohan2020

It's rare that the RPM might cause compatibility issues

At this point I suggest you contact HP Support in your region for Service Options since the Hard drive works through USB but the Motherboard slot does not detect it

1) Click on this link - www.hp.com/contacthp/ 
2) Select your product type below.
3) Enter the serial of your device. 
4) Select the country from the drop-down. 
5) Select the chat or get phone number options based on your preferences. 
6) Fill the web-form and proceed further.

Thank you