[SOLVED] New M.2 SSD: got "device does not exist" error, but now it's working, should I keep or return it?

[QuantumField]

Hi everyone,

I got a new XPG SX8100 4TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4 SSD. Yesterday, I installed it in my motherboard (MSI MEG X570 UNIFY with AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU), in one of the M.2 slots, and covered it with the motherboard's M.2 heatsink. There are two other SSDs in the other two M.2 slots, both PCIe 4 at 2TB. The new SSD is PCIe 3 because it's around half as cheap as a PCIe 4 SSD at the same capacity, and yet the speed difference is not substantial (the PCIe 3 SSD is half as fast as the PCIe 4 SSDs, but 30 times faster than my old 4TB HDD).

When I turned on my computer, my OS (Windows 11) recognized the new SSD. I formatted it and then turned on BitLocker. While BitLocker was encrypting the drive (I always choose "encrypt entire drive" even if it's new, just to be on the safe side... but yes, I do know it's mostly pointless) I started copying around 3TB of data from my old HDD to the new SSD (which is replacing it).

When the BitLocker encryption was around 29%, and copying the files was around 5%, I suddenly got the error "a device which does not exist was specified" in Windows Explorer. It refused to continue copying and kept showing this error when I clicked "Retry". BitLocker encryption also got stuck. I went to the Disk Management app and didn't see the device there.

I restarted Windows, but the disk was still gone in Disk Management. I then turned off my PC, took the SSD out and put it back in, thinking that it might have been dislodged somehow (although I don't see how that's possible, given that it's held in by a screw and there's a heatsink on top of it). When I did that, I noticed that the heatsink was burning hot (almost burned my finger), but I don't know if that's relevant since I checked and the other two SSD heatsinks were also around the same temperature. And also, isn't the SSD supposed to throttle speed if it gets hot instead of just disappearing completely?

In any case, I reinstalled it, reinstalled the heatsink, and also waited a bit until everything cooled down. Then I turned on my PC, and this time Windows Disk Management did recognize it.

However, for some reason it was recognized as "read only", so I couldn't reformat it. I opened diskpart and "cleaned" the disk, which solved this problem, but I have no idea why it was marked as "read only" in the first place.

I was able to reformat it, reapply BitLocker (this time I waited until encryption was over, thinking that copying that files while also encrypting the disk may have caused the issue), and then successfully copy all the files from the old HDD.

It's been a day and so far it seems that the new SSD is working properly. However, I'm worried because I don't know what caused that error the first time. Could it have dislodged from the M.2 slot even though it was held by a screw and under a heatsink? Could the heatsink have been installed improperly, causing it to overheat and shut itself down? Is there a risk that this same error will happen again, causing me to lose data?

Basically, what I'm wondering now is whether it's possible that the disk itself is malfunctioning and I should just return it and buy another one, perhaps even from a different brand (which would necessarily be more expensive, since this is the cheapest M.2 4TB SSD I could find), or should I keep it because the error was probably just due to an issue with the original installation?

Thanks in advance!

 

[QuantumField]

Update: I found the answer to my own question. According to this Reddit post, if the M.2 heatsink is mounted too tightly on this particular motherboard, the M.2 card may be lodged out of its socket. I must have tightened it too much the first time, which is why it was not properly connected, and this was fixed when I reinstalled it, which involved reinstalling the heatsink as well. Everything works great now, so I'm definitely keeping this SSD. I'm posting this here in case someone googles this issue and finds my post.