Windows Wont recognize my M.2 SSD

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

Hi, I am trying to clone my data from my current factory drive on my razer blade stealth to my new SSD I purchased. The data cloned successfully but the laptop refuses to recognize the dive. Does anyone have any idea why?

 

This is the new drive the laptop fails to recognize:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SD8SN8U-1T00-1122-X400-M-2-SSD/dp/B0194MV300?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

[TaylorSwiftOrNon]

I dont have exp with this drive, but windows didnt have any problems with my M.2 Samsung 950 Pro

[xentropa]

Is the new SSD a boot drive?

 

Depending on how the M.2 SSD is "keyed" it could be using the SATA or PCIe interface.  Booting from a PCIe interface requires a bit of work.

[Ophidio]

Have you tried completely reseating the drive? Also check the BIOs and see if the motherboard is recognizing the drive. 

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

That was actually my last drive but I wanted to upgrade to a 1TB drive.Now I just cant get the laptop to recognize it

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

1 hour ago, Ophidio said:

Have you tried completely reseating the drive? Also check the BIOs and see if the motherboard is recognizing the drive. 

The motherboard is not recognizing the drive at all. Thats what im having trouble with

[Ophidio]

2 minutes ago, A_Wild_SkyBear said:

The motherboard is not recognizing the drive at all. Thats what im having trouble with

Definitely try reseating it and if that doesn't work my contact Sandisk for support? That's odd it's not detecting it at all.  Badluck m8 hope you get everything working soon. 

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

1 hour ago, xentropa said:

Is the new SSD a boot drive?

 

Depending on how the M.2 SSD is "keyed" it could be using the SATA or PCIe interface.  Booting from a PCIe interface requires a bit of work.

The SSD is new. I cloned the data from my old drive to the new one just fine but when I insert the new drive into the motherboard slot on the laptop, its not recognised

[xentropa]

So the OLD drive was the main drive of your laptop.  You cloned the data from your OLD drive to the NEW SSD drive (from another computer or the same laptop?) and now the new drive is not recognized?

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

1 hour ago, xentropa said:

So the OLD SSD was the main drive of your laptop.  You cloned the data from your OLD drive to the new drive (from another computer or the same?) and now the new drive is not recognized?

I cloned the data using one of these adapters. Within the adapter the drive is recognized fine. it is even compatible with the connector on the motherboard. 

[xentropa]

Ah ok ic ic.

 

Are you trying to run windows on the new drive?  That is crucial to determining why your drive is working or not.

 

If yes, then this is just my opinion:

 

Most likely the problem is that when you cloned your old drive onto the new SSD, it might have copied the MBR onto the SSD as well.

 

Unfortunately, if you connect the NEW SSD to the M.2 interface directly, the drive might be connected through the PCIe interface and booting from that interface requires the UEFI firmware scheme which MAY NOT support the MBR partition as boot devices.  In other words, the UEFI firmware won't search the MBR of your drive and it won't know how to boot or what to do with that device.  In UEFI, boot information is stored within the firmware itself .

 

When you plugged that M.2 SSD through that SATA adapter, it may have either used some sort of legacy compatibility scheme to make it function similar to an ordinary sata drive.  However without that, the compabitility may be lost.

 

I think what you might have to do is reformat and reinstall everything on that new drive.  Booting from that M.2 might also require switching from BIOS to UEFI.  

 

Otherwise you have to check your motherboard settings to see if Legacy BIOS mode can be enabled for M.2 devices.

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

2 hours ago, xentropa said:

Ah ok ic ic.

 

Are you trying to run windows on the new drive?  That is crucial to determining why your drive is working or not.

 

If yes, then this is just my opinion:

 

Most likely the problem is that when you cloned your old drive onto the new SSD, it might have copied the MBR onto the SSD as well.

 

Unfortunately, if you connect the NEW SSD to the M.2 interface directly, the drive might be connected through the PCIe interface and booting from that interface requires the UEFI firmware scheme which MAY NOT support the MBR partition as boot devices.  In other words, the UEFI firmware won't search the MBR of your drive and it won't know how to boot or what to do with that device.  In UEFI, boot information is stored within the firmware itself .

 

When you plugged that M.2 SSD through that SATA adapter, it may have either used some sort of legacy compatibility scheme to make it function similar to an ordinary sata drive.  However without that, the compabitility may be lost.

 

I think what you might have to do is reformat and reinstall everything on that new drive.  Booting from that M.2 might also require switching from BIOS to UEFI.  

 

Otherwise you have to check your motherboard settings to see if Legacy BIOS mode can be enabled for M.2 devices.

Alright. I have tried so many things im about to cry. I have dug  though the bios and I cannot find any info of recognizing the drive. 

I am also unsure of what you mean by "also require switching from BIOS to UEFI"

 

Do you know of any drivers or programs i can download to make the drive visible? When I boot from a Windows flash drive the drive isn't  recognized but is in the adapter

[xentropa]

Sorry for the late response.   I live in Japan and had to sleep

 

EDITED*

 

The following is just my opinion but I will give you some background info to help you understand the situation.

 

BIOS is the firmware within the motherboard that is set up to deal with storage and boot devices.  In this config, the boot information is stored on the drive.  A drive is set as the priority boot device, the motherboard scans the drives for the boot information and then the computer starts.  You will notice that in the BIOS settings, the computer does not actually know what kind of OS is installed on each drive or which drive has boot information.  You can override boot settings and cause the computer to halt when you try to boot from a drive with no boot information.

 

We generally speak bios settings as a general term for motherboard settings in general though i think that is a tad misnomer.

 

In UEFI, boot information is stored within the motherboard firmware, not the drive.  This has (alleged) benefits of starting faster, and it is required for pcie booting since pcie booting is not natively supported by bios.

 

When you connected that M.2 SSD to the SATA adapter, some proprietary drivers, partition tables and volume information must be installed onto the M.2 SSD.  The adapter then emulates a SATA interface which allows your computer to communicate with the M.2 drive via the adapter in between.  However the drivers. partition tables, and volume information, installed by the adapter may be proprietary and incompatible with windows.

 

=========================================

 

Back to your problem

 

Does the drive show up in "disk management" or device manager when connected by the M.2 interface.

 

 

 

 

I had a similar problem when trying to install windows on an M.2 SSD.  This video gave me the correct answer.  The hardware might not match your system but the overall concept should still apply.

 

 

 

[patrick1993]

Are you trying to install Windows 7 or 10?

[A_Wild_SkyBear]

15 hours ago, xentropa said:

Sorry for the late response.   I live in Japan and had to sleep

 

EDITED*

 

The following is just my opinion but I will give you some background info to help you understand the situation.

 

BIOS is the firmware within the motherboard that is set up to deal with storage and boot devices.  In this config, the boot information is stored on the drive.  A drive is set as the priority boot device, the motherboard scans the drives for the boot information and then the computer starts.  You will notice that in the BIOS settings, the computer does not actually know what kind of OS is installed on each drive or which drive has boot information.  You can override boot settings and cause the computer to halt when you try to boot from a drive with no boot information.

 

We generally speak bios settings as a general term for motherboard settings in general though i think that is a tad misnomer.

 

In UEFI, boot information is stored within the motherboard firmware, not the drive.  This has (alleged) benefits of starting faster, and it is required for pcie booting since pcie booting is not natively supported by bios.

 

When you connected that M.2 SSD to the SATA adapter, some proprietary drivers, partition tables and volume information must be installed onto the M.2 SSD.  The adapter then emulates a SATA interface which allows your computer to communicate with the M.2 drive via the adapter in between.  However the drivers. partition tables, and volume information, installed by the adapter may be proprietary and incompatible with windows.

 

=========================================

 

Back to your problem

 

Does the drive show up in "disk management" or device manager when connected by the M.2 interface.

 

 

 

 

I had a similar problem when trying to install windows on an M.2 SSD.  This video gave me the correct answer.  The hardware might not match your system but the overall concept should still apply.

 

 

 

The SSD is apparently using sata as an interface, and the laptop apparently only supports NVMe drives. So although the pins match up and the drive fits, it doesn't show up or is even recognized unless it is in the external adapter.  

Thank you for all your help. You have been extremely helpful in this situaiton, but unnfortunatly I am going to return the drive and buy my old Samsung Pro 950 NVMe drive

Once again. Thank you for your help.