Windows 10: External SSD recognized as HDD in Windows 10

As already someone asked years ago (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/external-ssd-not-recognized-as-ssd-in-windows-10/70716cb4-34a8-475c-8267-c4a5669beeeb) without any positive fix, I'm here to do the same question again.


Why my windows 10 pro x64 v1903, after years of updates/upgrades since the above question (topic) was made, my windows is still recognizing an external SSD as an HDD???

This problem was present in Windows 10 version 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803, 1809 and the last one 1903!!


As performance doesn't matter, is not the point, the problem is while optimizing an SSD via dfrgui.exe the OS manage the drive as an SSD and do its job in few seconds, doing the same for an SSD as an HDD is completely different: unuseful and harmful for the drive.


How is possible, if it is, to set windows to recognize correctly the drive? If you want a screen shot the one in the mentioned above post is always current


The drive involved, also if I think is not useful for this purpose, is an SSD INTEL DSC2KW256G8 USB 3 plugged in a USB 3 port


Tks in advance

:)

 

External SSD not recognized as SSD in Windows 10

Hello community!

(this topic applies to Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 equally)

my question concerns an external 240GB SSD drive connected to my laptop via an USB 3.0 port. The SSD works fine, but when using the "Optimize Drives" utility, the drive is listed as "Hard Disk Drive" under media type. As stated by almost all SSD manufacturers,
standard defragmentation on a SSD can actually harm the SSD and over time reduce performance and life-cycle. A test revealed that the optimization for the external SSD is actually performed like on a regular HDD and the TRIM command is not used. This would
also indicate that the regular TRIM commands issued by Windows are not applied to the external SSD drive either. Short of turning off automatic optimization, is there a way to tell Windows that this is an SSD drive and to treat it as such (regardless of
the information provided by the disk- or case-controller) ?

See also picture attached -

Drive C: is a SanDisk SDSSDXP480GR131 SSD drive built in the laptop and recognized properly as an SSD.


Drive F: is Lite-On LMT-256M6M SSD drive attached via one of the USB3.0 ports and classified as regular HDD.

 

Windows 10 not recognizing SSD in external drive docking station

I just purchased a WD Blue SSD to replace an existing HDD as the primary drive in my laptop. I have a Nekteck external drive docking station that I am trying to use to clone the primary drive. When I insert the SSD it is not recognized as a drive. If
I view Devices I can see the dock and I can see that it recognizes the WD drive is in the doc and says the device is working properly. However I cannot get the OS to recognize it as a drive in file manager. It does recognize one of my other HDD drives just
fine. I appreciate any suggestions.

 

Windows 10 on HDD to a new SSD

I have recently replaced the 500 GB HDD in my laptop running Windows 10 with a 480 GB SSD. The laptop was fully configured with my applications and other settings. The steps I took were as follows:

1) Shrink the C: drive so it was significantly smaller than the SSD (by at least 100 GB) using the Disk Management tools in W10.

2) Copy all the files from D: onto an external HDD.

3) Download Ubuntu Linux and burn on to a DVD.

4) Download Windows 10 from Download Windows 10 and burn this on to a DVD.

5) Close down and boot the laptop from the Ubuntu DVD from step 3 (I used a USB DVD rewriter).

6) Plug in the external HDD.

7) Open a Linux terminal and cd to the external HDD.

8) Copy the C: partition to the external HDD using a command such as:

dd bs=1024k if=/dev/sda1 of=C-drive

where sda1 is adjusted to point to the correct partition.

9) Close down and remove the external HDD.

10) Remove the HDD and replace with the SSD.

11) Perform a clean install Windows 10 from the DVD from step 4. Deleting all partitions from the SSD if it has had any created on it. When it asked for the product key, there was an option to enter it later. Make sure that the C: drive that is created is
the same size or bigger than the C: drive was on the HDD.

12) Repeat steps 5, 6 and 7 then run the command

dd bs=1024k if=C-drive of=/dev/sda4

With the clean install of W10 64bit, sda4 was the C: drive on the SSD after the installation.

13) Reboot from the SSD. The first couple of times my laptop reported errors and went into repair and diagnostic cycles. The last one said something like Reboot or Go to further tools. I cannot remember the exact messages but the meaning was as I have described.
I rebooted and Windows 10 came up and ran perfectly.

14) With the SSD working I shrank the C: drive a few GB to make sure the physical space was the same size as the actual filesystem.

15) Create a D: format it and copy all the saved files on to the new D: from the external HDD.

Job done. All my applications worked perfectly and the laptop connected to my wireless network without needing the pass phrase re-entering. I had tried several other ways of cloning the HDD to the SSD, but as the SSD was 20 GB smaller this was the only way
I managed to get it to work.

I hope this helps others to make the HDD to SSD transition.