Question New SSD showing 20MB

Jan 16, 2025
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Got a new SSD yesterday. Went to format it and it came up with 20mb. The SSD is a TeamForce Vulcan Z 1TB. When it came up to the formatting it showed I was setting it up to be a windows main drive. It was setting up partitions. It only set up one and it was 20mb. Doesn't show up in windows. Doesn't show up when I put it in a laptop and started to install windows. Shows no hard drives at all. Won't initialize. Even when I restarted to laptop said hard drive failure. This this thing brick itself? I usually buy Crucial drives.Never had this happen before and TeamForce customer service seems to be useless.
 
Got a new SSD yesterday. Went to format it and it came up with 20mb. The SSD is a TeamForce Vulcan Z 1TB. When it came up to the formatting it showed I was setting it up to be a windows main drive. It was setting up partitions. It only set up one and it was 20mb. Doesn't show up in windows. Doesn't show up when I put it in a laptop and started to install windows. Shows no hard drives at all. Won't initialize. Even when I restarted to laptop said hard drive failure. This this thing brick itself? I usually buy Crucial drives.Never had this happen before and TeamForce customer service seems to be useless.

go into disk management in windows with it hooked up and see if you can see it in there. you may need to format it in disk management.

if it shows only as 20mb in bios hard drive is dead.
 
if its not showing.. how do you know its only 20mb? where is that info showing? can you add pics here showing.

does it show up in the manage section on windows .
also if you try and install windows to it. do you get the part/option to format/delete, partion etc.. if so .. you should see if you can delete the partition. or extend/shrink partition. .. if you get this option ,, then its just a case of deleting partition, and formating or extending it to cover size of whole drive.

worse case is that the main section of the drive failed .and the 20mb is just a seperate drive partition that was for some cache or holding drive info..
 
A lot depends on the seller and the price. If it was a reliable seller and the price was around $50US then the drive could be defective. If it was not a reliable seller and the price was less than $50US then it was a bogus seller and deal.
 
if its not showing.. how do you know its only 20mb? where is that info showing? can you add pics here showing.

does it show up in the manage section on windows .
also if you try and install windows to it. do you get the part/option to format/delete, partion etc.. if so .. you should see if you can delete the partition. or extend/shrink partition. .. if you get this option ,, then its just a case of deleting partition, and formating or extending it to cover size of whole drive.

worse case is that the main section of the drive failed .and the 20mb is just a seperate drive partition that was for some cache or holding drive info..
I tried to post pics. Asks for a link. I am not going to use another website to post pics. In disk management it shows the drive with only 20 mb. I have tried to delete the partition. That isn't working either. Tried to format. It won't. Won't initialize. Tried to install windows to it. Doesn't recognize there is a drive. Put it in a laptop and tried to install windows. Shows no drive.
 
A lot depends on the seller and the price. If it was a reliable seller and the price was around $50US then the drive could be defective. If it was not a reliable seller and the price was less than $50US then it was a bogus seller and deal.
I got it from Best Buy. Looks like I will be returning it.
 
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if you are going to return it.. use your phone.. to take a pic. to show the sales person the problem.. it should make it easier for them to refund.

(im the same about using another site to add pics. to sites.. but sometimes its the only way to help).
 
if you are going to return it.. use your phone.. to take a pic. to show the sales person the problem.. it should make it easier for them to refund.

(im the same about using another site to add pics. to sites.. but sometimes its the only way to help).
I want to exhaust all options before I have drive all they way to Best Buy again. Just not in the mood for that. If I can fix the problem I have learned something if this comes up again
 
when i had this issue (it was with a ssd m.2 drive.) i had to unplug all other drives. then
1)turn on pc
2)f12. to select boot drive.. and boot from win11 usb install
3)try and format drive if it allowed, or expand or shrink drive. or create new partition. (it should allow you to do 1 of those options. this should then allow you to get the full size of the drive in 1 formatted partition.. and working.. it may take a few tries.. but it will save you returning it. if it works
 
Usually when an SSD reports some very low capacity, it's an indication that it has a firmware problem. This is especially true if it cannot report its SMART attributes.

Do you have an older Gigabyte motherboard with an Xpress Recovery BIOS? These had a bug that would reduce the capacity by 1TB. 1TB drives would then show up as 32MB.
 
Usually when an SSD reports some very low capacity, it's an indication that it has a firmware problem. This is especially true if it cannot report its SMART attributes.

Do you have an older Gigabyte motherboard with an Xpress Recovery BIOS? These had a bug that would reduce the capacity by 1TB. 1TB drives would then show up as 32MB.
I have tried 2 different computers. One desktop with a 2013 Gigabyte board. The other a newer HP laptop.
 
when i had this issue (it was with a ssd m.2 drive.) i had to unplug all other drives. then
1)turn on pc
2)f12. to select boot drive.. and boot from win11 usb install
3)try and format drive if it allowed, or expand or shrink drive. or create new partition. (it should allow you to do 1 of those options. this should then allow you to get the full size of the drive in 1 formatted partition.. and working.. it may take a few tries.. but it will save you returning it. if it works
I have tried all that. I have been working on this for that last 36 hours. Since I have win10...I haven't done the jump to 11 yet.