Asus X551M Hard Disk Replacement
A friend brought to me his laptop to check it because it isn't starting. The first thing that i've done it was to check if the charger was working (i have seen in some cases that the faulty part was the charger) so i set my multimeter to 20 V dc and measure it... the charger is ok.
After opening the lid and pressing the power button i could see the asus logo on the screen and after a few seconds the screen become grey and nothing happened.
No error... when the operating system it's corrupted or partition table it's corrupted usually you should see an error saying that you should insert the proper boot media, or boot record was not found...
No sounds... when the faulty part it's the hard disk it usually making some distinct / repetitivenoises (depending on the hdd model - there are some loud hdd on the market that are making noises even though they are working properly).
Next i've tried to boot from an usb stick but the time needed for this task was way too long and i've decided to remove the hard disk from the laptop and connect it to my computer to check it.
I've asked my friend if the laptop still have warranty because i'm suspecting the hard disk and if i'll open it will void the warranty... from him i've received a green light because the laptop did not had warranty any more.
To remove the hdd from the laptop the first step is to power it off and turn it backwards to have access at the screws that are keeping the case in place. On the back there are 9 screws that need to be removed - pay attention to this step because the screws have different lengths. Next using a guitar pick slowly pry the case open. After disconnecting the ribbon cables (3 of them) the part with the keyboard can be put aside - at this point you have access at the laptop guts.
After removing the hdd from the laptop and
connect it to my computer and running hd tune (a great program / tool in the field) my suspicion was confirmed.
After a few days i've received the new hard disk for the laptop and i could finish this repair. I've mounted the metal bracket on the new hard disk and install it in the place of the old hard disk. after reconnecting the ribbon cables and set the keyboard in place i've opened the laptop entered in BIOS and checked if the hdd was detected and set the boot order so i can install the operating system.
The installation of the operating system and several usual programs went smoothly... i can't say the same for recovering the data from the old / damaged hard disk... but that's a topic for another day.
You can watch here the replacement of the hard disk:
Thanks for reading / watching.
