Question Newly installed M2 SSD disappears from BIOS and disk manager whenever I try to initialize it

usneux

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Mar 3, 2013
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Hello! I bought a Samsung 970 EVO SSD a while ago and only finally installed it last night after my other drive filled up. My mobo is a Gigabyte Z490. My original boot drive (same model) is in the M2M slot and I installed this one in the M2A slot. These are the only drives installed so no possibility of SATA conflicts. The manual doesn't say anything about what order to use these slots, so I'm guessing it doesn't matter (the final slot is blocked by my CPU cooler so I haven't tried it yet).

On my first attempt, I couldn't get the drive to show up anywhere so I reseated it. Now it appears in BIOS and Windows prompts me to initialize it as Disk 1. However, I immediately get a "A disk device which does not exist was specified" error when I attempt to do so. The disk remains visible in disk management until I restart, and then it disappears entirely from both the BIOS and Windows. I can reliably restart this process by completely shutting down, cutting PSU power, and then booting back up.

Any ideas?
 
Hello! I bought a Samsung 970 EVO SSD a while ago and only finally installed it last night after my other drive filled up. My mobo is a Gigabyte Z490. My original boot drive (same model) is in the M2M slot and I installed this one in the M2A slot. These are the only drives installed so no possibility of SATA conflicts. The manual doesn't say anything about what order to use these slots, so I'm guessing it doesn't matter (the final slot is blocked by my CPU cooler so I haven't tried it yet).

On my first attempt, I couldn't get the drive to show up anywhere so I reseated it. Now it appears in BIOS and Windows prompts me to initialize it as Disk 1. However, I immediately get a "A disk device which does not exist was specified" error when I attempt to do so. The disk remains visible in disk management until I restart, and then it disappears entirely from both the BIOS and Windows. I can reliably restart this process by completely shutting down, cutting PSU power, and then booting back up.

Any ideas?
What happens if you swap the disk in the m.2 slots?
 

usneux

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Mar 3, 2013
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18,510
The PC booted but then :( blue screened almost immediately after I swapped the two SSDs. I figured this probably meant that the M2A slot I was now trying to use was borked, so I gave in and pulled out the CPU cooler to get at the last m.2 slot. It was worth it because the slot works and I have 2 functioning drives! Thanks for the advice to try swapping them since that led me to solving this. Sucks that that last slot is dead, but oh well.