harddisk suddenly disappeared

[Gokulb97]

The mechanical hard disk suddenly disappeared while working on the laptop. After that, i tried rebooting and restoring the windows. Nothing worked. I also checked for the missing drive in disk management and it was not there and also not in the device manager also..I need immediate help as i don't have an auxiliary laptop 

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@Gokulb97 

I understand your issue -- but there is nothing we here can do to fix this as you would have to (1) replace the failing drive, and (2) reinstall Windows onto the new drive.

This issue is often due to a failing drive.

So, let's check that first, because if it is failing, it would need to be replaced and there is no point then in doing anything else until we confirm that.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the HDD (Hard Disk Drive): http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the HDD 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.

Please note that if your model has an SSD instead of an HDD, these diagnostics might not work properly.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Win10 and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[Gokulb97]

Thanks for your detailed answer. It was very helpful. Unfortunately the hard drive is dead due to controller issue. Data recovery is the only option for me now