First - I'm here to shared my 2 day time spend on my Lenovo U310 to try to make iRST work and learn this technology from flash install Windows 10.
Unfortunately I can't make this work but is a good learning process for service those laptop down the road.
Laptop - Lenovo U310 i3 CPU, 4Gb Memory, 500Gb 5400rpm Hdd, 24Gb SSD.
Goal - Install Windows 10 from scratch and using 24Gb SSD as a cache to improve performance.
BIOS - SATA mode is RAID, all partition on both 500Gb and 24Gb are erase.
iRST - Download from Intel for both 14.8 and 14.0 and Lenovo Windows 8.1 web download version.
Tried - At least 6-7 time install Windows 10 from scratch.
Steps:
After install Windows 10 and reboot.
Install INF and reboot. (Latest version.)
Install IRST and reboot. (Tried all three version.)
Create Intel Acceleration and shutdown.
Windows boot up within 10 second and confirm iRST work.
Shutdown 1-3 time without any problem.
Reboot - Once reboot, Windows 10 keep "diagnostics" - "Fix" loop.
For some reason restart Windows causing this issue.
(I was create restore point from Windows and restored but still keep crash.)
The only way to fix it is to flash install Windows again AND clean the SSD partition.
I tried install IMEI and Rapid Start, without any help.
Workaround - Install ExpressCache in AHCI and work prefect. (Confirm the SSD is in working condition.)
Also, SSD drive price are pretty affordable now and iRST will be less attractive.
Hope this will give someone clue if they facing the same issue.
Good luck.