My PC does not recognise my external NVME

lotusmoon · August 16, 2023, 08:39:43 AM

I changed my hard drive NVME for a new one and put the old one in an enclosure so that I could have access to the files when I wanted them.
When I connect the enclosure to the laptop it does not show alongside the hard drive on my PC. When I go into the management it shows it in the management but there is still no way of accessing it I have put screenprints of both of those so you can see what I mean. Any help in getting this working will be much appreciated.

On this link you can see the screenshots –

option=com_content&view=article&id=142

Wooster · August 16, 2023, 09:24:53 AM

You might need to delete the volume in disk management and format it again. (Or you could try converting it to a Dynamic Disk)

Was it previously encrypted with Bitlocker?

lotusmoon · August 16, 2023, 09:43:52 AM

Quote from: Wooster on August 16, 2023, 09:24:53 AMYou might need to delete the volume in disk management and format it again. (Or you could try converting it to a Dynamic Disk)

Was it previously encrypted with Bitlocker?

Thank you for your help
I am new to this could you give some YouTube links of how I would go about doing these things that you have mentioned?

Wooster · August 16, 2023, 11:18:54 AM

N.B. The drive numbers in the video are probably different on your machine

Make sure you do not delete anything on a disk that holds your C: drive.
Basically, triple check you are deleting the correct drive.

lotusmoon · August 16, 2023, 12:32:35 PM

Thank you for finding that video.
I'm concerned that what he was doing would delete all of the material held on the hard drive that I was going to use as external.
I want to keep all of that material as the second way of saving it. But using it when I need it for the new hard drive.

Wooster · August 16, 2023, 06:56:25 PM

Easy way is to fit the old drive as Primary again, copy the info you want to keep and stick it back on it when you've swapped everything around again and made the old drive readable. (Stick the new drive in the caddy, and if it sees that you can copy the files to a folder on that.)

If you used bitlocker and you reinstalled windows after fitting the new drive, you might have some issues if you don't have the original encryption key...anything on it is irrecoverable without it as far as I know.

lotusmoon · August 16, 2023, 08:54:31 PM

I did that once before somehow it wrecked the hard drive and it wouldn't work any more.
Is there a possibility that may happen again or did I just do something severely wrong last time?

Wooster · August 16, 2023, 09:35:09 PM

I'm not sure, you might have to bite the bullet and accept that the data is gone.

lotusmoon · August 16, 2023, 09:39:14 PM

Okay thank you but I feel sure there must be a Safeway somehow doing this that I keep my data on that hard drive and am able to use it as an external drive

Wooster · August 16, 2023, 10:06:09 PM

Yeah, reinstalling it and seeing if the data is still accessible. (In IT circles, taking a system back to it's previously working state is known as a regression.)

Trololol · August 16, 2023, 11:24:56 PM

You can pop it back into your PC as an internal drive, copy the files over to another internal drive or a cloud/hosting service.
Then take the drive out and back into the caddy and format/initialise it as an external drive.

Or, I'm assuming your nvme external was the primary boot drive?
If your PC you have taken it from is relatively modern it may have made a eufi partition that makes essential files/functions boot quicker and directly communicate with the userinterface/OS.

It maybe possible to use a partition manager that will see such partitions (enclosed areas of your drive that are seen as their own drive (but with eufi a drive within a drive) and work individually to the rest of the drive) and delete the eufi and/or boot partition that is causing Windows to ignore the drive.

https://www.paragon-software.com/free/pm-express/

https://www.diskpart.com/free-partition-manager.html

https://www.lifewire.com/free-disk-partition-software-tools-2624950

Just google how to use them if you decide to try them.

lotusmoon · August 17, 2023, 04:45:03 AM

Thank you, I would like to do that. But as I said with my last drive it corrupted when I put it back in. Do you think that that was a one-off and that I am fairly safe to put the drive back in?

Wooster · August 17, 2023, 10:35:53 AM

If it's a laptop, there's a possibility that it wasn't fully shut down, but in a hybrid sleep mode.

To get a hard shut down you can either hold the power button down for 10-15 seconds, or hit CTRL + ALT + DEL, select the power button at the bottom right and select shut down.

Trololol · August 17, 2023, 10:37:18 AM

Unfortunately there's no way of knowing without an idea of what caused the last corruption.

Wooster · August 17, 2023, 02:12:49 PM

Well it's extremely uncommon to corrupt a drive just by installing it.

If it's in use, make sure Bitlocker is disabled on the drive you are taking out before you remove it..

QuotePress Windows Start button. Type bitlocker. Click Manage BitLocker to enter the BitLocker Drive Encryption menu. Select Turn off BitLocker to proceed with decryption.

If you can boot from the old one, do the same on that and it should be readable in the caddy again.

lotusmoon · August 18, 2023, 07:54:43 AM

Quote from: Wooster on August 17, 2023, 02:12:49 PMWell it's extremely uncommon to corrupt a drive just by installing it.

If it's in use, make sure Bitlocker is disabled on the drive you are taking out before you remove it..

QuotePress Windows Start button. Type bitlocker. Click Manage BitLocker to enter the BitLocker Drive Encryption menu. Select Turn off BitLocker to proceed with decryption.

If you can boot from the old one, do the same on that and it should be readable in the caddy again.

Thank you for all your help I will go ahead and try this. to get it to work as an existential drive afterward do I have to delete all the files?

lotusmoon · August 18, 2023, 07:57:17 AM

Quote from: Trololol on August 17, 2023, 10:37:18 AMUnfortunately there's no way of knowing without an idea of what caused the last corruption.

Thank you for all your help is there anything I have to do while I have put it back in the laptop so that it can be used as an external drive afterward?

Wooster · August 18, 2023, 09:25:04 AM

No. You'll be erasing it once you have copied the data you need from it.

Trololol · August 18, 2023, 01:29:06 PM

Just out of curiosity.
I'm wondering if you have ever had a system crash?
In modern PCs there's usually an option within the BIOS called fastboot. It basically caches your most used files and OS state, when you start your PC it skips the usual BIOS checks and gets straight to your most usual operation state.
It's like Wooster suggested earlier with hibernation, except you can actually disconnect power.It can corrupt quite easily if a catastrophic event such as a bsod or crash/reboot occurs
If it's enabled (and it usually is by default) it's really important to disable it before swapping any hardware as the cached file will stand a good chance of corrupting as it conflicts with the new hardware, especially it doesn't find what it's looking for.