sata raid 0 vista

I have read several posts where people are having difficulty installing Vista on a SATA RAID config. I have successfully loaded Vista on a SATA RAID 0 config and want to share what I did to make it work. May have been dumb luck on my part, but it did work! FYI, this was my third attempt to load and my original attempt to install Vista was from within XP Pro, which was blown away when I received a BSOD stating I had a disk drive issue. So, here is what I ended up doing.
Clean install on an ABIT IC-7G with two 74GB WD Raptors, no other HDs, just a DVD drive and a floppy on this system. This is the x86 version (32 bit) of Vista. Did the RAID setup in my BIOS (Integrated Periphials - On Chip IDE Device) and after exiting, set up the RAID array via the Intel RAID for Serial ATA (Ctrl+I) to invoke the services and then saved my config. Vista did it's install pieces and after I entered the Key, was greeted with the blank "Where do you want to install Vista screen" - My disk was not visible at this time.
Clicked on the load drivers button and since I have both the Intel and SIS 3112 controllers on this motherboard, I loaded both sets of drivers at this point. It was here that I found perhaps the problem many people have encountered. Instead of loading my motherboard's floppy which contained the SATA drivers, I copied the actual files from the SIS and Intel folders onto another floppy and inserted that floppy. So, instead of Vista looking into a floppy and a set of folders, Vista now simply had to find the files without any further opening of folders or subfolders. My SATA 1 and 2 drives are controlled by the Intel controller, my SATA 3 and 4 drives are controlled by the SIS controller. My Raptors are connected to SATA 1 and 2.
The Load drivers function took about 30 seconds and when it completed, I clicked the refresh button and Vista recognized my drive array as one 138 GB drive. I formatted the drive under advanced options on the screen and then went on and completed the install.
So far, everything is working well.
Hope this is helpful to others that have been experiencing some Installation issues with the SATA RAID setup. I am not able to dedicate a lot of time to this newsgroup, but if you have questions, post them and I will try to reply ASAP!
Jeff

Good article but the majority of people who are having this issue have the Nvidia chipset. I guess MS has an issue with Nvidia. -- AMD-FX-60 2gb OCZ Plat. memory ATI 1800 AIW 2x74gb Raptors in RAID-0 2x400gb WD HDD in RAID-1 Epox Nvidia-4 Ultra M/B
"Jeff Staples" wrote:

I have read several posts where people are having difficulty installing Vista on a SATA RAID config. I have successfully loaded Vista on a SATA RAID 0 config and want to share what I did to make it work. May have been dumb luck on my part, but it did work! FYI, this was my third attempt to load and my original attempt to install Vista was from within XP Pro, which was blown away when I received a BSOD stating I had a disk drive issue. So, here is what I ended up doing.
Clean install on an ABIT IC-7G with two 74GB WD Raptors, no other HDs, just a DVD drive and a floppy on this system. This is the x86 version (32 bit) of Vista. Did the RAID setup in my BIOS (Integrated Periphials - On Chip IDE Device) and after exiting, set up the RAID array via the Intel RAID for Serial ATA (Ctrl+I) to invoke the services and then saved my config. Vista did it's install pieces and after I entered the Key, was greeted with the blank "Where do you want to install Vista screen" - My disk was not visible at this time.
Clicked on the load drivers button and since I have both the Intel and SIS 3112 controllers on this motherboard, I loaded both sets of drivers at this point. It was here that I found perhaps the problem many people have encountered. Instead of loading my motherboard's floppy which contained the SATA drivers, I copied the actual files from the SIS and Intel folders onto another floppy and inserted that floppy. So, instead of Vista looking into a floppy and a set of folders, Vista now simply had to find the files without any further opening of folders or subfolders. My SATA 1 and 2 drives are controlled by the Intel controller, my SATA 3 and 4 drives are controlled by the SIS controller. My Raptors are connected to SATA 1 and 2.
The Load drivers function took about 30 seconds and when it completed, I clicked the refresh button and Vista recognized my drive array as one 138 GB drive. I formatted the drive under advanced options on the screen and then went on and completed the install.
So far, everything is working well.
Hope this is helpful to others that have been experiencing some Installation issues with the SATA RAID setup. I am not able to dedicate a lot of time to this newsgroup, but if you have questions, post them and I will try to reply ASAP!
Jeff