Never Displays the first row - php

Question

When I run the code in $Date within phpmyadmin it returns the correct number of rows but on the page it will never display the first row for some reason and I know it is not the numbering being off because my laptop Id is different for the two rows
function select_History_Date($link){
$status = '';
$i = 1;
$date = "SELECT Student_Id, Loaner_Laptop_Id, HDD_Id, "
. "Phone_Id, date_returned "
. "FROM equipment_history WHERE Loaner_Laptop_Id "
. "IS NOT NULL OR HDD_Id IS NOT NULL OR Phone_Id IS NOT NULL";
$ret = mysqli_query($link, $date);
$row1 = mysqli_fetch_array($ret, MYSQLI_ASSOC);
if (!$ret) {
die('Could not execute select statement:' . mysqli_errno($link));
} else {
while ($row1 = mysqli_fetch_array($ret, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
$status .= '<tr>';
$status .= '<td>' . $i . '</td>';
if (is_null($row1['date_returned']) && is_null($row1['HDD_Id']) && is_null($row1['Phone_Id'])){
$status .= '<td><a href="ReturnLaptop.php?laptopId=' .
$row1['Loaner_Laptop_Id'] . '&studentId='.
$row1['Student_Id']. '">'. 'Return'. '</td>';
} elseif (is_null($row1['date_returned']) && is_null($row1['HDD_Id']) && is_null($row1['Loaner_Laptop_Id'])){
$status .= '<td><a href="ReturnPhone.php?phoneId=' .
$row1['Phone_Id'] . '&studentId='.
$row1['Student_Id']. '">'. 'Return'. '</td>';
}elseif (is_null($row1['date_returned']) && is_null($row1['Phone_Id']) && is_null($row1['Loaner_Laptop_Id'])){
$status .= '<td><a href="ReturnHDD.php?hddId=' .
$row1['HDD_Id'] . '&studentId='.
$row1['Student_Id']. '">'. 'Return'. '</td>';
}else{
$status .= '<td>' . $row1['date_returned'] . '</td>';
}
$status .= '</tr>';
$i++;
return $status;
}
}
}

Answer 1

This line:
$row1 = mysqli_fetch_array($ret, MYSQLI_ASSOC);
is reading the first row of data from your result. But then you are not doing anything with it before you do
while ($row1 = mysqli_fetch_array($ret, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {
which overwrites the data with the values from the second row. You need to delete the first line.