GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 and new replacement IRST SSD cache drive

[garnet]

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3, 2500K, 8GB GSkill 1600 Ripjaws, 1 TB WD Black OS drive.

I'll been using a Corsair Force F60 SSD for my Intel Rapid Storage Technology cache drive for many months with no problems until it died the other day. I purchased a Vertex 3 60GB drive to replace it. I expected a simple swap but it's not happening. The Vertex is being recognized in the bios and in windows under the IRST software, but when I try to accelerate, I get the following errors. First; "An error occurred while an operation was in progress. The operation could not be completed." Followed by "An error occurred and the selected disk or volume could not be accelerated. Please restart your computer, and then try the operation again."

Under Windows logs, I see a few Errors that reference this.
IAStorUtil.StorageAction.NVCacheAccelerateDisk action failed: FailedToBreak
IAStorUtil.StorageAction.VolumeCreate action failed: FailedVolumeSizeCheck
IAStorUtil.StorageAction.VolumeCreate action failed: FailedToClaimDisks

I have tried the newest and also older IRST software, updating the BIOS to the newest, followed all information provided by Intel troubleshooting and I can not get this to work with this Vertex drive.
I know that other people use these OCZ drives for IRST. Unfortunately, I do not have another SSD of any brand to try.
Can anyone give me any ideas to solve this problem? Thank you.

[Aussie Allan]

  Do you have another plattered drive to do a dummy install with ? .... I suspect it has something to do with the last unit that died and how it has embedded itself (Drivers and config) in the OS including the Master Boot Record (MBR) ...going off the last two errors, the OS is having problems associating the new unit ( FailedVolumeSizeCheck) .... you may have to start from scratch ( Install of OS) to confirm it's the OS and not the drive .... this is why I suggested the dummy install to another drive if you have one.

  Aussie Allan

[garnet]

Thanks for the reply. I started to do that this afternoon. Got a drive prepared, but then got taken away from it. I guess I better move forward with it so i can be assured the problem is with the SSD.

[garnet]

Update! 

I installed Win 7 on another HDD, setup the IRST and installed the Vertex 3 SSD. Set it up as a cache drive and accelerated the system drive. No problem. So, there is nothing wrong with the SSD. My first thought that's great! Second thought, I've now got to start from scratch and reinstall Win 7 on my main drive and all my programs, games, etc. Over 2 TB worth! 
I then installed everything back to the way it was with the thoughts I would start the reinstall tomorrow. To my surprise, I saw the RAID screen flash by on it's way to boot and the SSD was listed as a Cache Drive. I couldn't be that lucky, could I?  Yes! I went into the IRST control panel and the SSD was listed as a cache drive, so I accelerated the system drive and all is working perfectly. For some reason making the SSD a cache drive under a different operating system stuck with it when I transferred it to the old OS. Why, I have no idea but I'm really happy it did. 

[Aussie Allan]

   Sometimes just unplugging them , scares the bejusus out of them and they start playing ball  ......in a more technical description .... re-initializing at the hardware level sometimes works 

  Aussie Allan

[Rolo42]

For some reason making the SSD a cache drive under a different operating system stuck with it when I transferred it to the old OS. Why, I have no idea but I'm really happy it did. 

One has to do this when one wants to install Windows on the caching SSD (i.e. 128GB SSD, only 64GB can be used for caching) since initialising the cache will destroy the OS partition; therefore, one installs Win7 on HDD first, creates the cache, then installs on SSD.

In your case, the cache had to be created on the SSD before the OS can see/use it.

[Aussie Allan]

  I love definitive answers .... reads much better!

  Aussie Allan