New M.2 NVMe SSD Initialization Failed

[NonSequitur777]

Symptoms:

Just purchased a brand-new 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD (WD_BLACK SN770), and upon installation in one of my desktops, this drive didn't "show" or register in Window's File Explorer.

Mind you, the brand name or kind of drive (M.2 NVMe SSD, SATA SSD, SATA HDD) is irrelevant.  The same issue with different drives has happened to me occasionally over the years, and most were resolved using the method I am going to describe below.

First thing is to access Microsoft's "Disk Management" by typing in 'disk management' in your Windows search bar. Then click on: "Create and format hard disk partitions".  If besides your working drive(s) anything else shows up, such as: "Disk 2 Unknown Not Initialized", right-click on the grey area to the right of this message and see if the Initialization option and/or Convert to GPT works.

For example, you can get this message as I did: "The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error":

 

Diagnosis:

The diagnosis is obvious: the drive is not initialized, is not online, and is not available for use, and even appears to be defective.

 

Solution:

The solution is as follows: 

Step 1: Type in 'cmd' in your Windows search bar, then right-click on the Command Prompt then left-click on 'Run as administrator', then click on Yes for permission.

Then, type: diskpart in the prompt and hit "Enter".

Step 2: Type the following commands and press "Enter" after each:

list disk 
select disk x    (where "x" is the number of the problem drive, usually the last one, such as "2" in my case)
attributes cleared successfully 
online disk
convert gpt

The last comment should read: "DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format."

exit

Your disk is now initialized and online!

You can return to Microsoft's "Disk Management" by typing in 'disk management' in your Windows search bar and allocate the drive and create a drive letter.

NOTE: If you want to make this drive a primary (boot) drive, you can create a partition on it:  

Step 1: Type in 'cmd' in your Windows search bar, then right-click on the Command Prompt then left-click on 'Run as administrator', then click on Yes for permission.

Then, type: diskpart in the prompt and hit "Enter".

Step 2: Type the following commands and press "Enter" after each:

list disk

select disk x    (Replace the "x" with your drive number, we are using 2 in this example).

clean   (This wipes the drive.)

create partition primary   (Creates a partition.)

select partition 1   (Selects partition 1.)

active   (Marks the current partition as active.)

format fs=ntfs quick   (This formats the partition.)

assign   (Assigns a drive letter.)

exit   (This will exit diskpart, repeat to exit Command Prompt.)

Hope this was helpful.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777