Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.
I took her my lap top and brought it home.. cracking open I found
no hard drive, but a scandisk thingie. I took it out of the connector,
some of the gold plated contacts were corroded (or worn?) It's about
a 1"x3" pcb, connector on one end and flat head screw into 1/2 plated
hole on the other. The connector was 'sprung' such that the screw in
the back was needed to hold it down. (Is that done on purpose?)
And I assume the plating around the 1/2 hole at the end is for
grounding.
Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Ideas? Can I try a simple tinning of the contacts? or
something else?

George H.

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:07:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.
I took her my lap top and brought it home.. cracking open I found
no hard drive, but a scandisk thingie. I took it out of the connector,
some of the gold plated contacts were corroded (or worn?) It's about
a 1"x3" pcb, connector on one end and flat head screw into 1/2 plated
hole on the other. The connector was 'sprung' such that the screw in
the back was needed to hold it down. (Is that done on purpose?)
And I assume the plating around the 1/2 hole at the end is for
grounding.
Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Ideas? Can I try a simple tinning of the contacts? or
something else?
Oh I should add the contacts might not be the problem...
in fact most likely something else.

George H.

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:14:59 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:07:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.
I took her my lap top and brought it home.. cracking open I found
no hard drive, but a scandisk thingie. I took it out of the connector,
some of the gold plated contacts were corroded (or worn?) It's about
a 1"x3" pcb, connector on one end and flat head screw into 1/2 plated
hole on the other. The connector was 'sprung' such that the screw in
the back was needed to hold it down. (Is that done on purpose?)
And I assume the plating around the 1/2 hole at the end is for
grounding.
Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Ideas? Can I try a simple tinning of the contacts? or
something else?
Oh I should add the contacts might not be the problem...
in fact most likely something else.

George H.

Oops... Sandisk
GH sorry

On 2020/04/11 7:14 p.m., wrote:
On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:07:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.
I took her my lap top and brought it home.. cracking open I found
no hard drive, but a scandisk thingie. I took it out of the connector,
some of the gold plated contacts were corroded (or worn?) It's about
a 1"x3" pcb, connector on one end and flat head screw into 1/2 plated
hole on the other. The connector was 'sprung' such that the screw in
the back was needed to hold it down. (Is that done on purpose?)
And I assume the plating around the 1/2 hole at the end is for
grounding.
Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Ideas? Can I try a simple tinning of the contacts? or
something else?
Oh I should add the contacts might not be the problem...
in fact most likely something else.

George H.


Make?

Model?

Symptoms???

John :-#(#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:32:57 PM UTC-4, John Robertson wrote:
On 2020/04/11 7:14 p.m., wrote:
On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 10:07:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.
I took her my lap top and brought it home.. cracking open I found
no hard drive, but a scandisk thingie. I took it out of the connector,
some of the gold plated contacts were corroded (or worn?) It's about
a 1"x3" pcb, connector on one end and flat head screw into 1/2 plated
hole on the other. The connector was 'sprung' such that the screw in
the back was needed to hold it down. (Is that done on purpose?)
And I assume the plating around the 1/2 hole at the end is for
grounding.
Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Ideas? Can I try a simple tinning of the contacts? or
something else?
Oh I should add the contacts might not be the problem...
in fact most likely something else.

George H.


Make?

HP Pavillion, you turn it on and..

Error, No hard drive (F03?)

(or something like that)
I went to the some setup screen and asked it to
reinstall the bios... which it said it did.
but no better.

George H.
Model?

Symptoms???

John :-#(#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:07:58 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Hi all, My daughters ~3yro computer wouldn't boot... no hard drive.

[ with a Sandisk SSD, probably mSATA or m.2]

Anyway, on several of the gold plated contacts the gold was
almost all gone, leaving corroded copper. I think all the
'corroded' pins were on the top. I cleaned it with IPA and put it
back in.. same problem.

Sounds like a beverage spill?

If the socket is OK, or if there's another suitable socket, you can replace the SSD,
and worry later about the data. To experiment at data recovery, it sometimes
helps to get an adapter (to USB) or external case, like this

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32992601773.html

I haven't had to deal with an SSD but I did have a similar failure on my daughter's laptop.

You have two problems: the operating system isn't there so the computer won't run, and you can't get to the data on the SSD.

In my case putting the hard drive in an enclosure let me recover the data to another PC. The sectors with the operating system were trashed but I got her data back. I bought a new hard drive, with some effort we got an operating system loaded, and I transferred her data back.

In your case buying a new SSD is easy. I doubt you will recover any data given your symptoms. So you still need to deal with the operating system replacement. With Win 10 I don't know how hard that is - with my old system I couldn't get a replacement OS from the manufacture because the retailer had loaded the systems. I had a friend with an XP image that worked, and eventually I converted to Linux.

The lesson here is when you buy a laptop make a recovery disk, USB, or whatever it reads BEFORE you start using it. Eventually they all die.

On 2020/04/14 7:46 a.m., Tim R wrote:
I haven't had to deal with an SSD but I did have a similar failure on my daughter's laptop.

You have two problems: the operating system isn't there so the computer won't run, and you can't get to the data on the SSD.

In my case putting the hard drive in an enclosure let me recover the data to another PC. The sectors with the operating system were trashed but I got her data back. I bought a new hard drive, with some effort we got an operating system loaded, and I transferred her data back.

In your case buying a new SSD is easy. I doubt you will recover any data given your symptoms. So you still need to deal with the operating system replacement. With Win 10 I don't know how hard that is - with my old system I couldn't get a replacement OS from the manufacture because the retailer had loaded the systems. I had a friend with an XP image that worked, and eventually I converted to Linux.

The lesson here is when you buy a laptop make a recovery disk, USB, or whatever it reads BEFORE you start using it. Eventually they all die.


Has the OP contacted HP? Their service should cover this kind of failure...

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

John Robertson wrote:
On 2020/04/14 7:46 a.m., Tim R wrote:
I haven't had to deal with an SSD but I did have a similar failure on my daughter's laptop.

You have two problems: the operating system isn't there so the computer won't run, and you can't get to the data on the SSD.

In my case putting the hard drive in an enclosure let me recover the data to another PC. The sectors with the operating system were trashed but I got her data back. I bought a new hard drive, with some effort we got an operating system loaded, and I transferred her data back.

In your case buying a new SSD is easy. I doubt you will recover any data given your symptoms. So you still need to deal with the operating system replacement. With Win 10 I don't know how hard that is - with my old system I couldn't get a replacement OS from the manufacture because the retailer had loaded the systems. I had a friend with an XP image that worked, and eventually I converted to Linux.

The lesson here is when you buy a laptop make a recovery disk, USB, or whatever it reads BEFORE you start using it. Eventually they all die.


Has the OP contacted HP? Their service should cover this kind of failure...

John :-#)#

Probably limited to replacing the SSD module, when you are lucky filling
it with a factory-standard Windows image. And returning it, mentioning
"now please restore your backup".
Often not really what customers are hoping for.

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 12:46:49 PM UTC-4, John Robertson wrote:


Has the OP contacted HP? Their service should cover this kind of failure...

John :-#)#


Should, but it's 3 years old, out of warranty I'd think.