Got it back together and it works. Mostly. Windblows can’t find a system file so am now running the hard drive test from bios.

Now to put the damn thing back together enough to see if it will actually work or if this was all for naught…

Did the soldering but turned out the problem was the ground wiper in the jack. Ended up making a tool to bend it back into shape.

it fell off a desk and got jerked to a stop by the power cable. Hard drive works so the guy’s data is intact. Checked that first.

Will get out the soldering iron and try a bit of soldering around the power connector just in case that will fix it as it was working before

Don’t know why I keep working on laptops. Must just like pain. Just got a HP apart (finally) and looks like a toasted motherboard.