4. TROUBLESHOOTING
MY NVME WRITEBLOCKER WILL NOT COME OUT OF "STANDBY"
MODE.
You will need to connect both an SSD to the NVMe WriteBlocker and connect the NVMe WriteBlocker to a
functional host computer in order for it to come out of "Standby" mode. Once it leaves "Standby" mode,
you will be able to navigate menus.
However, some older models of Intel
®
U.2 drives are not compatible with the NVMe WriteBlocker. Such
drives will remain on standby and not mount to the computer. There is no known workaround for these
drives.
IN THE VIEW DRIVE INFO SECTION, THE MANUFACTURER
AND/OR MODEL DOES NOT APPEAR CORRECTLY.
The NVMe specification states that the manufacturer name and model name occupy a contiguous area in
the buffer and should be separated by a space. There are more than a hundred different manufacturers of
NVMe drives, and they have implemented this in many different ways. Some manufacturers include one or
more spaces in their company names, which can cause the NVMe WriteBlocker to interpret everything af-
ter the first space to be part of the model name. Some manufacturers use characters other than a space,
such as an underscore. Others leave out the space entirely. Manufacturers may even implement it in dif-
ferent ways across different drive models or versions of firmware.
If you need to record the drive’s manufacturer and model for a report, use the information on the drive’s
label instead of the NVMe WriteBlocker’s LCD menu if the values don’t match.
WHY AREN'T DRIVES FORMATTED EXT4 MOUNTING TO MY LI-
NUX PC?
Linux appears to search for a superblock and write to it as part of the mounting process. Since the NVMe
WriteBlocker is preventing writes from reaching the drive, this process cannot complete, and the drive is
not able to mount. Drives formatted NTFS or FAT32 do not have this issue and are able to mount in Linux
via the NVMe WriteBlocker.
WHY DOES THE ACTIVITY LED BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY FOR M.2
AND U.2 DRIVES?
For M.2 drives, the activity LED should be off by default and flicker on during activity. For some U.2 drives
this is reversed, with the LED on solid by default and flickering off during activity. This is due to some U.2
drive manufacturers departing from the NVMe specification’s recommendations.
NVMe WriteBlocker User Manual
9
