My Laptop says there is no storage device/SSD installed on the PC

[MJalal]

Hi, I recently got into an issue with my laptop, when I booted it just told me that I do not have an OS installed and I kept restarting my pc and sometimes it would boot but suddenly a bluescreen would come up saying critical error. nevertheless I took out the SSD connected it using a USB SATA cable and installed a fresh windows using my other PC and so far I have had no issues when I am using the USB SATA cable with my laptop's SSD. I am confused if it is the ribbon SATA connector that is failing or the motherboard, if its the ribbon connector where should I buy from because I bought one from amazon and my pc tried to boot (which I think meant it discovered the SSD) but gave an error to no OS installed.
Kindly help Thanks

[BeemerBiker]

Your system is one of several with this design or base model

According to the parts locator you can have an NVME solid state drive and also a 2.5inch HDD.  Since these are custom systems, you may have one or the other or both.

The HDD to the left of the battery and the NVME SSD to the right as shown in photos of that locator.

The service manual lists possible drives on pages 1 and 2

Unless I am mistaken, your NVME drive, the "primary" went bad.  Possibly just corrupted files as there are not moving parts.

Page 36 lists compatible drives

l recommend you obtain that 1tb, the L85370-005 as a replacement and, if  possible, install factory software.

Can you provide the Product ID including the characters after the # symbol.  I can use that to possibly find a cloud recovery image unless you have a recent recovery image.

[MJalal]

Thankyou for the reply but,
I apologize for any confusion I may have cause in my question, but my laptop does not have a m.2/ nvme SSD it has a 2.5 inch SSD and the SSD works fine when I took it out and reinstalled a portable windows on it. I still use the same SSD but with a USB SATA connector (like an external SSD). My question is that I am not sure if my SSD connector (the ribbon one which connect to the motherboard) is broken or is it my motherboard that's broken, and if its the SSD connector which one should I use for my laptop.

The prodID is  341k4UA#ABA
thank you.

[BeemerBiker · Accepted solution]

Thank you.  I think I understand the problem.   Yourl 2.5 hard drive is not working when attached to the laptop using the internal ribbon cable.  The users manual gives removal instructions for the drive on page 38 but there is nothing related to the Hard Drive on that page except the title.  There is no documentation for the ribbon cable in that manual.

I did find an amazon part that might work.  Does the picture look like the part you need?  The systems "15-CP" is your laptop and possibly that cable is all you need.

There is another possibility to fix your system.  You can install that NVME drive I listed earlier and then use the HP Cloud Recovery to restore your laptop to factory release.

You use a 32gb flash and go to the site below and create a restore USB.

https://d34z73bbtpzgej.cloudfront.net/

Please look at the ribbon cable connector.  If it is damaged or the locking tab is missing then you  CANNOT use the ribbon cable or the 2.5 hard drive.  You will have to use an NVME and the cloud restore.  Once you get the NVME to work you can copy your important files from the 2.5 drive to the NVME.

The clip below broke off of the connector and the ribbon cable cannot be attached