I installed a new WD SN8100 SSD in the second M.2 slot of my MSI PRO B650 system. My existing drive is in slot 1 and contains data I need to keep. The new drive is detected, appears as Disk D, and shows as Basic, Online, 1863 GB, RAW, and Healthy (Basic Data Partition), but Windows Disk Management reports that it can't complete the format. I also tried several CHKDSK commands, but they only displayed the command help instead of scanning the drive. I've already removed and reseated the SSD multiple times. What's the safest way to get it initialized and formatted?
1 Answer
Since the new drive is showing as RAW, delete its existing partition structure and create a fresh one. Open DiskPart as administrator, run `list disk`, and carefully identify the new 2 TB drive by its size. Then use `select disk X`, `clean`, `convert gpt`, `create partition primary`, `format fs=ntfs quick`, and `assign`. Replace X with the correct disk number—`clean` permanently removes everything on the selected disk, so double-check before running it. If the drive still refuses to format after that, it may be defective and should be exchanged.
So deleting the partition means using DiskPart’s `clean` command rather than just deleting the volume? I’ll make absolutely sure I select the new SSD and not my existing data drive.