Turned old SSD into USB external drive - But not working

I recently upgraded my PCs SSD storage from 500gb to a new 1tb disk. I've removed the 500gb and placed it within an external SSD enclosure.

When plugging it into the USB port it's not recognised as a disk drive and when I try to initialize it there's an error not allowing me to proceed.

I never wiped the SSD and its in the exact format that it was when I was using it in my PC... Do I reinstall it to the motherboard, boot from it and wipe it there..... Or?

I'm hopeful there's some way I can wipe it and format it via the USB connection to use it as an external drive.

Many thanks for reading.


Your enclosure is NVMe, but your disk is not.

See the WD Blue 3D SSD (M.2) Review, where it's said:

Therefore, the good news: On the WD Blue 3D SSDs, it's SATA, so it's widely compatible. The bad news is, well, it's SATA, as this means it'll likely offer the same level of performance we've seen from SSDs for the past three years or so. But that's a SATA problem, not a WD one.

Your SSD is not NVMe, so doesn't work inside that enclosure. It can work at SATA speed, which is 6 Gbps, but not at NVMe speeds.

M.2 is a form factor, so only detailing the shape of the disk. It does not relate to its technology, which can be either SATA or NVMe.