I've recently purchased a 4TB Crucial P310 Gen 4x4 NVMe SSD, but I've spent hours trying to get it detected by my Asrock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard, which claims M.2 Gen 3 x4 support. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to detect the drive at all. I've tried every BIOS setting and hardware troubleshooting step I could think of, unplugging everything except for the M.2 drive. To confirm the SSD isn't faulty, I tested it in my Lenovo T470 laptop and it was recognized immediately. I really don't want to return it if I can help it. I'm considering using a PCIe to M.2 adapter, specifically looking at a SABRENT M.2 NVMe SSD to PCIe adapter card, which has great reviews. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness of these adapters and if there are other solutions I should explore.
3 Answers
There are likely two issues here: either your M.2 slot is dead or the SSD is not functioning. You can confirm this by testing another working SSD in that slot. As for PCIe to M.2 adapter cards, they generally work, but if the drive isn't detected by your motherboard, it might just be a DOA situation with the SSD.
Have you checked Disk Management? I remember when I installed an SSD ages ago, it wasn't detected by Windows at first, but it showed up in Disk Management. I just had to create a partition and it worked fine after that.
Your motherboard has two M.2 slots, but not all of them are meant for SSDs. Did you try both slots? One might not support NVMe drives, although I noticed the second one does state compatibility with PCIe Modules. Just check the manuals thoroughly to clarify their specs.
I checked the manual again, and you're right! One slot supports PCIe but not NVMe; I might have to look into that.
Why does everyone jump to 'dead' so quickly? There's also the chance that the drive hasn't been properly partitioned, which is likely if it's not recognized at all. Here's how to partition a new NVMe SSD in Windows: simply access Disk Management, locate your SSD, initialize it, and follow the prompts to create and format a new partition. Sometimes drives need this setup before they're recognized!