I recently cleaned my computer, and now my M.2 SSD isn't being detected by the motherboard at all; it doesn't even show up in BIOS. I took the SSD to a friend's place, and it worked perfectly fine in his system. I'm starting to think I may have damaged the motherboard during cleaning. I've tried reseating everything multiple times but no luck. If the M.2 slot on my motherboard is indeed broken, would using an M.2 SSD enclosure allow me to get it working again? The HDD is functioning fine, so it's just the SSD that's the issue.
3 Answers
Just to confirm, is the SSD completely invisible to BIOS, or can you see it listed as a physical device but not as a boot option? If it's not showing up at all, it does sound like there’s a problem with the M.2 slot. An enclosure could definitely help you access your SSD while you sort out the mainboard issues.
Yeah, I had a similar issue once! The BIOS not picking up the drive usually points to a hardware problem. Using an enclosure could be a solid workaround until you can get the motherboard checked out.
You might want to try using a PCIe to NVMe adapter. This can let you connect your M.2 SSD to another slot, bypassing the faulty M.2 slot on your motherboard. It could be a good temporary solution until you sort out the motherboard issue.

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