HP Envy HDD Issue

[mikeweb405]

I currently own a HP Envy Touchsmart 15. The other day I went to open up my computer and clean out my fan. In order to get to take off the bottom and get to the fan, I had to remove the hard drive. In the process of doing this, the plastic part covering the SATA connector on the motherboard broke off. So now my hard drive is disconnected and I can’t boot my computer. The hard drive itself is still fine, it’s just the connection to the motherboard that is broken. If I get a USB 3.0 to SATA enclosure, can I just boot my computer from one of the USB ports on the laptop? I would still use the internal hard drive, so the OS is obviously still installed with all of my other files along with it. I wanted to see if this was possible, as I’m trying to get some more use out of it instead of buying a new computer. Just hoping it won’t slow down tremendously.

 

[hang-the-9]

No you can't boot off the USB port with your normal drive. You need to replace the motherboard if the connection was broken off it.