Where is my Harddrive???

Haddonfield

Hi. Trying to fix an acer laptop from watching YouTube videos. Took of the panel and where the hard drive should be it is empty. Laptop working fine for past 2 years. Totally baffled. I have attached a pic if anyone can help. Thanks

L1011

Probably an M2 gumstick on the motherboard. Many laptops have the old hard drive drive bay still there as entry level models may use hard drive or cheaper sata ssd

Haddonfield

Could you tell me what that looks like? i just want to disconnect and reconnect as i keep getting "NO BOOTABLE DEVICE FOUND" message when i switch it on. I went through all the BIOS troubleshooting and this is last thing to try.

Thanks

smuggler.ie

Did someone play prank on you ? ☺️

Image posted does not show M.2, some card to the right from RAM, but it could be WiFi, unclear...

Post exact serial number or SNID - image bit blur to read of the label

or see specs for yourself on https://www.acer.com/gb-en/support/drivers-and-manuals

ItHurtsWhenIP

Something like these:

https://www.mouser.ie/images/marketingid/2020/img/199971830.png?v=031122.0535

dontmindme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058268696/where-is-my-harddrive

"from" in first line of your opening post should be "for"??

You're getting boot message "NO BOOTABLE DEVICE FOUND"  and then are surprised when you see no HDD?

Haddonfield

That's what I'm saying. This laptop has been working fine up until last week. I open it and hard drive bay is empty.

Haddonfield

Model number N16Q7

Aspire ES1-332

cunavalos

It looks like that laptop has a 32GB emmc hard drive which is soldered directly to the motherboard and not replaceable.

To upgrade or replace the hard drive you will need to order an Acer Sata to SSD cable and a 2.5" Hard Drive (preferably SSD).

While personally I like to keep laptops and PC's running as long as possible, this may be a case of throwing good money after bad and even at the lowest end you are probably talking €50 for the SATA cable and a cheap 128GB SSD.

One option would to try a clean install of Windows via usb and see if the EMMC is damaged or whether the windows installation became corrupted.

Flinty997

There's a video here...skip to the end to see the cable you need to fit a SSD. As the previous poster said I wouldn't spend much money on it.

https://youtu.be/IZH5Z1ZpSE0

Haddonfield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119785534#Comment_119785534

Thanks for that reply. Its just a laptop my elderly mother uses so i suppose i get her a new one. Thanks again