Anyone install WD Black NVMe SSD in Aurora R7? Suggestions?

We recently bought an Aurora R7 with only a 2TB HDD. I'm now trying to add a 500 GB WD Black M.2 NVMe. If I simply install the drive the BIOS (updated to 1.0.17), Device Manager, and Intel RST all see it, but Windows doesn't asign it a drive letter and Intel RST or something else then "disconnects" the drive, and it then only shows up in Device Manager as "hidden" and "disconnected."

1. First off, has anyone here installed this SSD in an Aurora R7? WD shows this model on their compatibility list, but you never know...

Ideally, I'd like to simply clone the HDD onto the SSD to maintain Dell's set-up. (Three partitions in addition to the main partition for recovery and whatnot--these must be good for something, right? Right?) 

2. Is it possible to clone with the SSD in the M.2 slot, or it must initially be done through USB with an adapter?

3. Is it stupid of me to attempt the clone? Should just be going with a clean install?

I did start to do a clean install last night, but the process of creating a recovery drive somehow fried the thumb. It was a new one, and possibly faulty. Now it shows up as "64MB" and cannot be reformatted...

4. For whatever works, do I have to make any changes to the BIOS, such was from RAID to AHCI? Do I need to disable anything in the BIOS? I've been making no changes to the BIOS?

5. Changing to AHCI will require a full reinstall regardless, or this can be done in conjunction with a clone?

6. Should I disable Intel RST? I don't think it's causing the problem, as the drive is never assigned a letter by Windows, and RST loads late in the boot sequence. It might be disconnecting the drive, but I think only because Windows isn't recognizing it.

I have removed the drive for now. With it installed the system would hang when going to sleep or shutting down. I did run diagnostics on the drive, and it passed all tests, so AFAIK the SSD is fine.