[SOLVED] NVMe is not detected when using M.2 PCI-E Adapter Card

[Mumby]

Hi everyone,

I have an ASUS Z170M-Plus motherboard with a Sandisk 256GB M.2 drive plugged in as the 'C' drive of the PC. I wanted to increase my storage, so I bought a 1TB WD_Black SN850 NVME SSD (M.2 2280 PCIe GEN4) and a Supageek M.2 PCI-E Adapter card. My plan was to install the new drive in a PCI-E slot, clone the old (smaller drive) onto the new (bigger) one using EaseUS and then put the bigger one into the M.2 slot on the motherboard.
I put the new SSD into the Supageek adapter card and installed that in PCIEX16_2 on the mobo, there is a Strix 1060 GPU in PCIEX16_1.

The trouble is that I just can't see the new drive in any way. It doesn't appear in the BIOS, diskmgmt.msc can't see it, it doesn't appear in file explorer in windows. There is a red LED on the adapter card which is lit up steady red which presumably is not a good thing.

Is this a fundamental incompatability between mobo/NVME/PCIE adapter? I thought I was very careful to get a new SSD that would be compatible. BIOS firmware is 2.17.1246

I'm using Windows 10 Home, 20H2

Can anyone advise on why I am not able to see/detect this new SSD in any way? I was expecting 'plug and play', but I guess not.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[USAFRet]

Why not put the drive in the M.2 port to start with?
Instead of the PCIe adapter.

 

[Mumby]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I was hoping to clone the existing drive onto the new one so that I didn't have to 'start fresh' reinstalling windows and all my programs onto the new one. It just seemed more conveneient.

 

[Lafong]

I'm using an adapter card for my M.2 data drive without issues. SIIG brand; 15 bucks from Amazon.

Why a card? Because I could not find the GDMFing teeny tiny screw needed to affix the M.2 to the motherboard.

Attaching the drive to the card was a bit fussy, but other than that I can't recall any issues at all.

Have you tried another slot?

Are you sure your board supports booting from NVMe or from a slot?

Are you able to see the drive if it is attached directly to an M.2 port?

Have you considered imaging rather than cloning?

Have you considered an app other than Easus?

 

[Mumby]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I don't think I have anothe slot unless I remove the GPU. I'm not sure my board supports booting from NVMe or from a slot (please bare with me, I am not very knowledgable aobut any of this), but I thought that at this stage I'm not actually trying to boot from it, I just want to be able to 'see' it as an extra drive so I can do something with it.

I can try seeing if it works attached directly to the M.2 port.

I haven't considered imaging rather than cloning, I don't really know what that means but I will look into it. I suppose until I can actually detect this drive I won't be able to image or clone.

I haven't considered another app, I just went with the top result from google when I searched something like "how to transfer my m2 drive to a new one" (not exactly those words but you get the idea). I think it is a moot point until I can see the drive. Can you recommend another app in the meantime?

Thanks for the input

 

[Lafong]

In my opinion, Macrium Reflect Free Edition is the best cloning or imaging app.

Cloning and imaging will both transfer whatever is on drive 1 onto drive 2. Cloning in a single step. Imaging requires 2 steps, but is anecdotally less prone to failure.

Yeah, you've got to be able to see the drive one way or another. I'd just assume for test purposes that I was going to use it purely for data, not Windows, and see if I can get it recognized and formatted directly from an M.2 port.

If you can get that far, then move it onto your adapter and see if you can continue.

Of course, the adapter card could be defective....thus test your M.2 in a motherboard port rather than on the card.