u/Guilty-Stay285

Hi everyone,

I need some help with an Acer Aspire 7 A715-series laptop.

While opening the laptop for a hardware upgrade, I removed the bottom cover and accidentally noticed that the 2.5" Toshiba HDD was stuck to the cover. When I lifted the cover, the HDD was pulled away and the ribbon cable disconnected.

Since then, Windows no longer detects the drive and my D: drive has disappeared.

The Toshiba HDD currently has its bare SATA connector (gold pins) exposed. The storage cable appears to have:

• A large blue-tab ribbon connector that connects to the motherboard.
• A smaller blue-tab connector on the HDD side.

I'm worried that I may have accidentally removed or lost a SATA interposer/adapter/caddy connector that sits between the ribbon cable and the HDD without realizing it.

Could someone familiar with the Acer Aspire 7 storage setup help me identify:

1. Whether there should be a separate HDD SATA interposer/adapter attached to the drive.
2. How the HDD-side end of the ribbon cable is supposed to connect.
3. What parts should be present between the ribbon cable and the Toshiba HDD's SATA connector.
4. How to correctly reconnect the drive so it appears in Windows again.

I can upload photos of the HDD, ribbon cable, and laptop internals if needed

Thanks!