Question 2230 M.2 Drive taken from desktop isn't recognized by drive enclosure

[krus54]

My Dell desktop has two drives:
C: 256gb SSD
D: 1 tb HDD

My C drive was almost full, so I replaced it with a 1 tb SSD.

After replacing the SSD, I realized there were some files I hadn't backed up, that I need. I bought a CaseDock enclosure from Amazon for reading 2230 M.2 drives. After plugging into the computer, the device says Drive not recognized and asks if I want to initialize the drive.

I went into Disk Manager on computer and it shows Disk 1 as "unknown".

Any ideas on this? Could the SSD be damaged or how can I find out? Could the fact that this was Drive C and has a Windows installation on it have anything to do with this? If anyone has an idea of how to do diagnostics and drive shows that its fine (it was perfect when removed from the computer), then how do I get to all the files?

(I'm not very technical so please try to explain things if they get too technical!) 😉

 

[Eximo]

M.2 drives come in two types. SATA and PCIe.

What does the dock support? What type of drive are you trying to use in it?

 

[krus54]

T

M.2 drives come in two types. SATA and PCIe.

What does the dock support? What type of drive are you trying to use in it?

What I purchased was a DOCKCASE Explorer Edition M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure from Amazon. I have a Kioxia 256 gb SSD NVME. Is there a way to post pictures on here?

 

[USAFRet]

T

What I purchased was a DOCKCASE Explorer Edition M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure from Amazon. I have a Kioxia 256 gb SSD NVME. Is there a way to post pictures on here?

Upload your pic to imgur.com, post the link here.

What is likely happening is a difference in sector size and compatibility.
Your external enclosure wants to see a specific sector size on the drive.
Not seeing it, it wants to initialize and reformat.

Almost certainly neither the drive or enclosure is "broken", just that they speak different languages.

Put it back in the system it came from, get what you need.
Yes, a pain. But that WILL work.

 

[krus54]

M.2 drives come in two types. SATA and PCIe.

What does the dock support? What type of drive are you trying to use in it?

Maybe showing my technological ignorance here, but are these enclosures designed to also read drives that already have data on them, or are are they just for initializing new SSD's?

 

[CountMike]

Maybe showing my technological ignorance here, but are these enclosures designed to also read drives that already have data on them, or are are they just for initializing new SSD's?

They are designed to read and write just like any internal disk connection or USB dongle. This one seems to be quite sophisticated one with all kings of data protection and ultra fast USB 3.2 controller which your PC might not support. Frankly you way over payed it is you are not going to use it for very important work. There are much cheaper and simpler adapters-

 

[krus54]

Thanks for the info. I tried this device on my old Dell plus my new Lenovo laptop, and neither worked. I'm going to return it to Amazon and follow your advice to try a less expensive one.

The reason for spending the money was that after I got what I needed from the SSD, I was going to reformat it and use as addition storage, or a portable drive if needed.