[goaliejerryy]

THIS WORKS ON VISTA 64.

My main problem was I wanted to clone my current OS partition onto a yet to be installed Raid-0 configuration. BUT, research informed me that first Vista had to have RAID drivers installed - and normally, you cannot install such drivers except at the time of original OS installation.

(note to Intel - I am amazed that no one over there ever thought that perhaps someone would want to setup a RAID system AFTER installing the OS....)

So, I needed to make my current version of Vista have the raid drivers installed before I could clone, but as you know, if you found this post, there is no straight forward way to just install the drivers without just clean installing.

This post has the answer.

I just want to say thank you to the original poster, all those who contributed, as well as "eliprand," whose advice of 05-05-2008 was critically important. (And if he got if from someone else, thank you too!)

Here is exactly what I did, just in-case someone has a similar setup as I do.

Mobo: MSI-7345 P35 chipset, NEO2-FR, w/ ICH9R RAID controller on-board
Bios: 1.10 (most recent)
OS: Vista Ultimate 64

First - I downloaded most recent version of Intel Matrix Storage from Intel website.
Second - I followed the directions in the first post, just substituting the newest version of the Intel Matrix Storage. Extract the files, move the appropriate .SYS file. THEN run the registry hack noted in the first post.
Third - reboot, and set bios to AHCI, since raid won't work yet.
Fourth - windows will start up (progress, since it wouldn't even do this before), let it run its install of drivers (since you can't stop it.)
Fifth - look above at Eliprand's post, wherein he describes editing the registry of "iaStor" to Start = 0x4, and editing "iaStorV" to Start = 0x0. THAT IS THE KEY.

Sixth - reboot, set to RAID in BIOS, then Vista will start up and install new device drivers, configuring each currently installed hard drive to run with the RAID drivers.

CHECK - in device manager, under "Storage Controllers," it now lists the ICH9R Raid Controller. WHOOT!

NOTE: This worked for me even though I do not even have the RAID drives installed yet.

Thank you all again. Note also that I recommend that anyone who thinks they may, at some time in the future, want to add a RAID setup to an existing Vista install, do this now - there is no harm in having the raid controller run your non-raid drives. (If I am wrong, please correct.)

Anyways, thanks for saving me hours of headaches, and the pain of reinstalling Vista!