[SOLVED] Proper way to change current NVME secondary storage drive from m.2 slot to PCIE adapter ?

[AceArson]

Currently have 2 NVME drives installed. One WD black SN 750 500 gb as my boot drive C: installed in m.2_1 on motherboard. I have a secondary WD Blue 1tb drive installed in m.2_2 on motherboard labeled D: I have purchased a new 2tb WD black SN850x that I would like to place in the m.2_2 motherboard slot and move the current WD blue to a PCIE adapter. I purchased https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08F76X63T?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details as the adapter.

I tried to just power down and move the WD Blue to the adapter and installed the adapter in the PCIEx16_2 slot but it is not showing up in windows 10 device manager or disk management. There is no unlabeled drive there at all. Also not able to find it in BIOS. Ideally I don't want to have to erase any data on this drive.

I know the PCIE adapter is fine and is able to seat properly as I then installed the new WD black SN850x into the PCIE adapter and it showed in disk management as unknown and asked to initialize the disk (I know enough that this is normal for a new drive - I don't want to initialize it on the PCIE adapter as I want it to end up in the m.2_2 slot).

I feel like the problem is just that the drive is already labeled in windows in that spot and it doesn't like it being physically moved. I have also tried unmounting the WD Blue D: drive in disk management while it is re-installed in the M.2_2 mobo slot then moving it to the PCIE adapter hoping to see it there to mount but no luck.

Is there some way to change physical locations on the motherboard and have windows still see the drive without reformating?? Currently not able to find it at all.

AMD Ryzen 5600x
ASUS TUF x570 pro wifi

 

[kerberos_20]

that adapter needs to have connected sata cable with mainboard sata port

 

[SkyNetRising]

I have a secondary WD Blue 1tb drive installed in m.2_2 on motherboard labeled D:

What is model name of M.2 WD Blue drive?
Is it NVME or SATA ?

Your PCIE adapter has 2 spots for M.2 drives. One spot supports sata drives only.
The other spot supports NVME drives only.
For sata drive also sata cable from adapter to motherboard is required.

 

[AceArson]

that adapter needs to have connected sata cable with mainboard sata port

Actually it only needs that for the top NVME slot on the adapter, not for the bottom one. Bottom one goes through PCIE no problem (Hence why the SN850x worked no problem).

 

[AceArson]

What is model name of M.2 WD Blue drive?
Is it NVME or SATA ?

Your PCIE adapter has 2 spots for M.2 drives. One spot supports sata drives only.
The other spot supports NVME drives only.
For sata drive also sata cable from adapter to motherboard is required.

Ah shoot - you hit the nail on the head and not something I realized - its a damned sata m.2 drive! "WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB Internal SSD - SATA III 6Gb/s M.2 2280 Solid State Drive - WDS100T2B0B"

I placed it in the top slot of the PCIE adapter and connected it to a sata port and it worked no problem.

Thanks a bunch - my error.