Express Cache

Macky · 25 Dec 2013 at 22:09

Just got a new laptop, Lenovo U410 which has a 500GB main drive but also comes with a 25GB SSD which from what I've read is supposed to be used for caching and speeding up general performance. However after updating to Windows 8.1 I think something has disabled this so was wondering how to get this functionality back, mind you I'm not sure if it was ever enabled properly.

I've tried downloading their 'expresscache' software but it said it could not find the correct partition or something. Then I tried with intels Rapid Storage Technology software which I think is the same thing but don't know how to set it up.

Any help would be great, if you need more details just say. Cheers!

Macky · 25 Dec 2013 at 23:10

Could you tell me what the rest of your bios options are please regarding HDD's Lizard? Won't need to format to set it to RAID will I? Not even sure what key it is to get into bios.. Wil have a read.

Macky · 26 Dec 2013 at 00:52

Do you also have the U410? I am a bit confused. Can I use my windows key that is on the laptop at the moment to activate a copy of windows if I reinstall? Won't the same problem arise of 8.1 wiping the express cache thing? Wish Lenovo had it set up right to begin with!

This thread seems to have the same issue as me, I'll have a more thorough read tomorrow. Fair bit of info on the web too. Certainly seems possible to start from fresh and still have the benefit of this cache drive. Just not sure about the W8 license..

Macky · 29 Dec 2013 at 01:23

Sorry to drag this up again but I'm planning on doing a fresh window 8 install. Am I right with these steps:

Download windows 8 iso and put on a USB stick (where to download from?)

Set the hard drives to the correct raid setting in bios so that the 25gb ssd can be used as the cache drive (not sure what settings I need in bios)

Boot from USB and install w8 to the main HDD. Probably get rid of all these recovery partitions etc as I won't use them.

Hopefully as others have said, the key will be automatically entered.

Enable the expresscache or intel rapid storage. Which one is better to use?

Get correct drivers etc and get up and running.

Lizardking or anybody else if you could shed any light on this then that would be great cheers!

Macky · 29 Dec 2013 at 02:58

I found a pretty informative thread on it on the site. Just unsure where to grab a copy of Windows 8 from?

Macky · 29 Dec 2013 at 03:06

Tried that but my product key that I found using magic jelly bean doesn't seem to work on it. Stumped!

Meh, my guess is that I probably don't have the right license to reinstall windows. So I'll probably have to buy it.

Macky · 2 Jan 2014 at 01:07

So I'm still struggling with this. I'm trying to change my ATA mode from AHCI to RAID without having to reinstall windows. A few guides have said put boot option into safe mode then change to RAID then restart however this throws up the same problem and it gets stuck in a boot loop. I read something about disabling CSM but I'm not sure what/how do to this.

Macky · 2 Jan 2014 at 17:38

So another issue arose. I need the drives to be in RAID, yep, then upon installing windows 8 again I need to install the intel RAID driver, yep. I try this and get the message that 'no new device drivers were found' f6flpy-x64 those were the drivers I tried to use and were told to use after following a guide. I can click on them and it says intel raid drivers etc etc and it seems to install but obviously not correctly as it shows no drives after installing. So I'm stuck again! This is turning out to be a nightmare just to get this tiny thing working properly. Sorry if I seem incompetent with it all.