Chosen Solution

My ASUS X555 lb laptop goes to bios while booting (looping) sometimes. when I checked the bios I found that bios is not recognizing the sata hdd. If I switch off the system, if I am lucky, the system works without any issue. This issue commonly occurs. I tried Linux and Windows 10 OS and in both cases issue with non detection of hdd is present.

Same issue here. Bought a replacement hard drive for this laptop and it will not show the drive after the first time I booted the device to install windows. This is the third hard drive I have tried in this machine and each time it’s the same issue; works for a short period of time and then the drive stops being recognized by the system at all. I have cleaned the connections, tried a reflow of the daughter-board which has the SATA connector (and the motherboard too). Then tied a new HDD… NOPE. Fails within 30 minutes of the install. Bottom line is this is a very poorly constructed laptop with poorly engineered parts. This was supposed to be an easy refurb for a friend, and it’s just turned out to be a money pit. I do not recommend the Asus R5XX model line, and will be going back to Toshiba.

The hard drive needs to be re-seated if bios is periodically not recognizing the hard disk, Sometimes due to heat, the heat can make internals expand, then when shut off it contracts which causes things to become loose. I suggest taking the bottom panel off by unscrewing all the screws and disassembling it.

  1. Take out battery and unplug the power source.
  2. Unscrew all the necessary screws to remove the bottom panel from this point Ground yourself to a Metal object frequently by touching anything metallic in color or conductive, a metal post, wire, or even a doorknobDo not scrub your feet, shoes, socks on the ground, or carpet Once finished proceed to step #3
  3. Locate the hard drive and unscrew the base screws holding it in 4 ground yourself 5 remove the drive gently by sliding it out of the SATA Port. 6 Examine the copper connections of the hard drive’s pins, Take a clean rag and damp it with rubbing alcohol and lightly wipe both sides of the pins clean, wait to dry then reconnect the drive by sliding it back in gently into the motherboards SATA port. 7 Make sure its nice and snug and give it a little wiggle, then proceed to put the back cover back on and screw in all the screws. 8 You can now re-insert the battery, then plug it into a power supply, 9 Press the Power button and it should boot and recognize the drive —Please keep me updated!—- Best regards, Repair Pug

hello good people. I have finally found a permanent solution to this ASUS HDD problem. the HDD control board in my ASUS X555L connects to the main motherboard via contact. So if there is not contact between the two boards.. the main motherhood which houses all main opponents cannot communicated with the hard-drive. I bought a similar board in ebay and upon removing the old one, I realised that the contact pins on the HDD board has been broken. I replaced with the new board which did not work for some reason. I then bought a HDD caddy . I removed my Dvd rom and put my hard-rive in the caddy and connected. Bang!!!! it works with out a need to reinstall anything. The logic is her… The optical drive bay SATA connector is directly connected to the main motherboard. so, I sacrificed an DVD for a hard-drive… my computer works fine… if I need to use a DVD or CD i will connect an external DVD drive. my recommendation is the hard-drive caddy https://www.ebay.com/itm/SATA-2nd-HDD-SS…

Hey everyone I was having the same problem on a Asus X556U. The HDD sometimes was not detected, I found out that the connector was not making proper connection all the time. The connections became really thin and they needed to be strengthened Instead of replacing the HDD board I just removed the DVD and bought a cheap HDD caddy.

I too was facing this problem actually the problem is in the connector , so best solution is to use hardisk caddy ,it will work perfectly I am using caddy only.

Hello I have the same problem. I did clean the HDD and the computer boots in windows. HDD was scanned and says its error free. This morning i turned the laptop on and no HDD was recognized but after applying pressure above the connector of the HDD board (near alt car key) it booted normally after the second try. Has your issue persisted? I’m thinking of strengthening the connector joints as per this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXrZd5cF… because the solution above was only temporary. Have you tried doing this or your issue was solved the first time? or did you replace the HDD board? Thanks in advance

Turns out there is a ribbon connecting the SATA daughter-board and the motherboard on the Asus R556 series laptops which is faulty. There are two fixes; reflow the traces at both ends of the ribbon (it’s easy to identify, as it crosses the HDD caddy), or purchase a new ribbon, daughter board and ribbon connector (for the motherboard interface).

Personally, I am inclined to agree with you, ‘Planned Self-Termination’. :/

….and Asus used to be so good too. :(

hi, i literally jts had this problem and found the cause to be the connector underneath the interface board was not making a proper contact all the time. It also can cause intermittent sound and usb problems.

I’m having the same problem. I know that I can use a HDD caddy on the DVD ROM, but I currently use a SSD on that caddy. So there is no space there. I tried cleaning both SATA connection on the HDD and also the daughter board, and also I cleaned the main board and daughter board connection. But same result, it works for some time and stops working Has anyone tried strengthening the connector as shown in the YouTube video?

I had the same problem. Just remove HDD,clean the contacts and try to push HDD with your hand in board connection.Do a test while pushing the HDD.. I did that and works perfect!!

the standoffs used to secure the hdd/optical board may not have been fully seated on the mother board prior to wave soldering only way to test is get 2 screws 2 springs insert from underside of standoffs and apply heat to reflow solder

as of today (20/08/2022) i had this problem too with my laptop (ASUS K555LNB) since a month ago due to falling off from my desk (twice!), I had a 2tb hdd on CADDY and a 256 ssd on SATA3, and both my OS were installed on ssd. after each boot up my system would crash after a while because my SATA3 port would fail and OS had no access to drive. solution: what worked for me so far was changing the drive ports (ssd on caddy, hdd on SATA3) and so far so good. (sometimes hdd would get unplugged and undetected but no problem as this drive is for archiving only) gotta mention that there is no such speed drop for ssd in sata2 and everything is working smoothly.