Bought laptop with 24GB caching SSD... I RUINED IT!!! HELP!!!

Just bought this laptop
Acer Aspire V7 14" Touchscreen Ultrabook - Iron (Intel Core i5-3337U/24GB SSD/500GB HDD/8GB RAM) : Ultrabooks - Best Buy Canada

It had a 500GB HDD and 24GB SSD.

I'm my naive world, I thought Windows 8 would be installed on the SSD, that I would have something like 15 left over GB for 1 or 2 games and use my 500GB HDD for storage!

Turns out :

1. Windows 8 is installed on the 500 GB HDD.
2. I can't see the 24GB SSD.

So I go in disk manager, format and activate the SSD and look for a way to install Windows 8 on the SSD since this laptop has no DVD drive...

I then realise I can't install Windows 8 on it and that the 24GB SSD is only meant to be used as a cache drive...

I assume it was configured as such but now that I formatted it, I believe I probably disabled it.


Now I've been going crazy for hours trying to find a way to re-enable or at least manage the caching drive but nothing works!.

Installed Intel's Rapid Storage Technology like 5 times. It installs perfectly and restart my laptop then nothing! I've beeen searching everywhere to open this software to manage manage/enable caching but it's NOWHERE.


PLZ IM GOING CRAZY HELP ME HERE!!!!

 

You need to delete the volume installed on your cache drive. It should not be active or anything. Also, did you change the drive mode in the BIOS from RAID to AHCI? Cause that will disable caching too. Intel SRT needs the SSD to be in RAID in order to allow for SSD caching.

 

Hi thanks a lot for the quick reply!

I did indeed activate the SSD to make it viewable ( lettre D\: )...

I checked in the bios earlier and there was only IDE and ACHI available... Is it because I activated the SSD? :O

I appreciate your help A LOT! Thanks!

 

Anyone? Plz I wouldn't want to bring it back for such a stupid thing...

Do I need to reformat and reinstall windows?

 

Intel Response Technology control panel should allow you to enable the drive and return it back to a caching drive. Here's a guide that may help: Intel® Smart Response Technology User Guide - PDF

Basically undo everything you did, and then enable through this control panel. It should be on the bottom right corner (by the date and time) in the popup menu.

 

Thanks but I can't find this "Intel Response Technology control panel"... I've been searching every where (including typing intel in the windows 8 search box).

I'm lost... really...

 

There's no need to be lost, there's no rocket science here. Are you logged in as Administrator?

 

Nah... good idea but I just checked and the account I'm using has admin rights...

 

You do not see this in your system tray?

 

Nope, only the little monitor icon on the left. :S

 

Man this is frustrating... I can't believe I can't find anything on Google regarding this...

Plz, if anyone has any infos on what I could do, let me know, I would appreciate it A LOT!

 

Calm down, it's not the end of the world. The Acer V7 uses ExpressCache software for the SSD caching since it's got no chipset support for RAID, which is required for Intel SRT. All you need to do to get SSD caching back is to wipe the SSD ( clean command in DiskPart) and reinstall ExpressCache, which you will find on Acer's driver downloads page.

 

Edit; Dito - the SSD is probably an iSSD meaning proprietary software..........

 

What you have to do is to go in to the UEFI, then enable compatibility BIOS mode. Then when you boot, spam Ctrl+i (this gets you in to the Intel RST sub-bios). From here, you can re-enable the 24gb SSD as a cache as original or you can turn off RST (i.e. the cahing function) should you want to install Windows on the SSD.