How do I format the iSSD?

Is there a way to format the 8GB iSSD that is soldered to the mainboard using a USB boot flash drive? I no longer need it because I am using a new SSD hard drive as the main drive for everything. It will need to be formatted to something Windows will not recognize (MAC formatted?).

 

As long as you have the iSSD, I think you can always use it as ExpressCache. I think its a bit faster than SSD, or at least more energy efficient... You can try use it for some time and see if you notice any difference.

You can delete the iSSD partition and don't format it with anything, so Windows will never use it, unless you want to, ou install ExpressCache.

In Windows you can do it easily by going into Disk Management and erasing all volumes in it.

With Command Prompt (you can use WIndow SafeMode or with Windows 8 DVD with repair (I think windows 7 will also do), you just have to write these commands:

DISKPART
then, 2 disks wiil come up: your SSD, and the 8 Gb iSSD. See which one is iSSD, probably disk 1

SELECT DISK # (where # is the disk number, 0 or 1)

CLEAN

And thats it. If all goes well, iSSD is erased, without any kind of file system, so Windows will only pickup on it has a hardware device, and wont use it as a HDD.

Sugestion: if you can boot with Windows 8 DVD/USB, when you get to the part where you select if you want to repair or install windows 8, press CTRL+F10. A command prompt will appear, you can use these commands I gave you through that.

 

Update: saw in a thread somewhere that iSSD cannot be used as ExpressCache with a SSD. My suggestion is that you could format the iSSD as a NTFS disk and use it as a Memory Pagefile for windows. Search the web a bit about putting the pagefile in another HDD, to speed up windows.