Disaster Recovery procedure for an HP Spectre x360 Laptop
A client of mine sprayed water on his HP Spectre x360 Laptop. As a result, the laptop revealed a blue screen, then shut down.
The laptop has an internal battery, and was not plugged in at the time. It wasn't a lot of water, and it wasn't directly poured on the unit, yet it was enough to shut the unit down. I asked my client to dry it off, and let it sit for a full 24 hours. After that period of time, my client attempted to power it up on the original internal battery. It appeared to turn on, with no display. It did emit a light pulse code that I researched on HP:
5.3 (blink)
The embedded controller times out waiting for the BIOS.
Remove all accessory devices from the notebook.
If the error code persists, contact support for possible repair.
Of course there is important data that needs to be retrieved, and there are absolutely no backups.
Proposed solution:
I have Identified the internal drive as
256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
model 13-ae013dx part no 941881-001
I purchased an enclosure for the M.2 SSD. I plan on opening the laptop, to review the internal unit for possible water damage. I will disconnect the battery and remove the M.2 SSD. I will insert the M.2 into the USB enclosure and attempt to access the data via a working laptop. I have not used an enclosure, or ever attempted to access a M.2 outside of a mother board,. Will this just open up in an explorer window, or will it asked to be formatted? I assume, provided it wasn't damaged, that it will just pop up for access once I plug it into the USB, correct?
Am I safe with the above plan? I assume I can't cause (provided I don't zap the board) anymore harm than that which has already been caused. If I am wrong, please advise. Is there anything you suggest for safe retrieval of this data?
The laptop has an internal battery, and was not plugged in at the time. It wasn't a lot of water, and it wasn't directly poured on the unit, yet it was enough to shut the unit down. I asked my client to dry it off, and let it sit for a full 24 hours. After that period of time, my client attempted to power it up on the original internal battery. It appeared to turn on, with no display. It did emit a light pulse code that I researched on HP:
5.3 (blink)
The embedded controller times out waiting for the BIOS.
Remove all accessory devices from the notebook.
If the error code persists, contact support for possible repair.
Of course there is important data that needs to be retrieved, and there are absolutely no backups.
Proposed solution:
I have Identified the internal drive as
256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
model 13-ae013dx part no 941881-001
I purchased an enclosure for the M.2 SSD. I plan on opening the laptop, to review the internal unit for possible water damage. I will disconnect the battery and remove the M.2 SSD. I will insert the M.2 into the USB enclosure and attempt to access the data via a working laptop. I have not used an enclosure, or ever attempted to access a M.2 outside of a mother board,. Will this just open up in an explorer window, or will it asked to be formatted? I assume, provided it wasn't damaged, that it will just pop up for access once I plug it into the USB, correct?
Am I safe with the above plan? I assume I can't cause (provided I don't zap the board) anymore harm than that which has already been caused. If I am wrong, please advise. Is there anything you suggest for safe retrieval of this data?
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Scott Silva
I hope someone "advised" the client how unsafe it is to spray water on any electronics? (for the future)...
HP Spectre x360 Laptop supports modern standby which means the internal storage is encrypted by default using Bitlocker.
Your best bet is to seek support from HP.
Your best bet is to seek support from HP.
>I purchased an enclosure for the M.2 SSD.
I hope you bought an NVMe one rather than a SATA one.
I hope you bought an NVMe one rather than a SATA one.
when i need to recover data, i avoid usb connections if possible. - they don't have good fault handling.
i try to connect the drive directly to a PCIe or NVMe connector
i try to connect the drive directly to a PCIe or NVMe connector
ASKER
Thank you for your quick response. I needed the feed back, to feel comfortable moving forward. I was successful in pulling the M.2, fitting it into the enclosure and plugging it into a USB of a good laptop. It came right up. I backed it up to death. All is well. Thank you
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