P965 Platinum, Vista, and Raid

Question

I spent a good couple of hours skimming the boards yesterday trying to set up my two new 320 SATAII hard drives in a RAID array.  I ran into a ton of trouble, but then finally figured out part/all of my problem and got things working.  I figure this information will be helpful for anyone who is trying to do the same.  I'll post the most useful links I found at the end of this post as well...
heres what i'm working with:
MSI P965 Platinum
2gb OCZ DDR2 800MHZ 2 dimm kit
36.7 WD Raptor SATAII (as system drive)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
Sapphire X1650 PRO 512MB PCI-Express
Antec TruePower TRIO 650 650W Power Supply
promise technology ultra ata 133 tx2 (the source of a ton of trouble)
originally i had vista ultimate x64 installed on a 36.7 gb raptor that was performing ok (once i did the extremetech suggested reghacks for lowdiskspace and 8.3ntfsfilenames), but not as well as my friends new computer with a blazing fast 500 gb stripe.
my bios was configured as such:
on board raid controller: ide
on chip ata devices -> sata 1 config: enhanced
...configure sata 1 as: ide
...sata 2 configuration: enabled
i shut down the computer, and changed
on chip ata devices -> configure sata 1 as: raid
then i was able to get into the raid setup with Ctrl + I, and set up my array.  Here's where I ran into my first problem.  I figured I wanted a raid 0 because I don't care soooo much about my data being lost, and i have never had a hard drive die on me (knock on wood) in the past 8 years (guardian angel).  So setting up my array was working fine, except for i hadn't anticipated that i would have to choose an ideal strip size.  The board suggests 128k, but after much deliberation I decided since I wanted the speed benefit for my OS and programs, I wanted 32k strip size; but having a 640 stripe for just the OS and programs seems huge, so out of curiosity I tried setting up two raid arrays (both across the same drives).  The first was a 100gb raid 0 with a 32k strip size and the second was a 496.2 raid 0 with a 128k strip size.  This worked fine, but then I got to thinking... can I set up the 100 gb array as a mirror?  If so, then I get the best of both worlds since I can secure all my OS/settings/programs/documents, but I'll have a super fast (respectively) 400 gb drive for ephemeral memory and expendable data (replaceable stuff like ripped dvds, downloaded music and programs, downloaded anything...).  This would all be at the expense of 100 gb which certainly seems worth it at this case because I wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of losing all my data like everyone seems to cry about all over the internet when talking about raid stripes.  So i set it up, this worked fine... next step boot into vist ultimate and start installation.
Here proved my most annoying step, as my first problem occurred when I couldn't find the dvd/cd drive in the boot sequence menu.  I saw the usb card reader drives, my raid arrays, and my raptor... but no dvd/cd drive (of which I had two connected).  After scouring the web about that darned Jmicron chip, it appeared as if the bios cannot see the PATA drives on this board and I would have to try pressing F8 at the jmicron bios screen.  THIS IS COMPLETE MISINFORMATION.
As stupid as it is, the real problem is that the boot sequence only displays 6 (i think it's 6) bootable media, and if you have anything else it just doesn't show it.  This gave me the impression that the bios was unaware of my cd/dvd drives connected to the IDE controller.  As soon as I unplugged my card reader, the dvd/cd drives appeared in the boot sequence... thank gawd because...
i had tried plugging my dvd/cd drives into the promise ata controller (which i already know lacks a vista 64bit compatible driver), which actually allowed me to boot into the vista setup whereupon I was asked (I did NOT have to press F6, even though everyone seems to think they have to) to install the driver for the dvd/cd controller (I assumed and was right that it was asking for the promise ata controller driver).  I put the most recent drivers from their website on a usb stick, plugged it in, and the driver worked and then setup was able to see my dvd/cd drives (which is weird because how did I get to that point if it couldn't?).
Then setup said it couldn't find any drives, so I figured the problem was with the driver for the ICH8R intel raid controller.  I downloaded drivers from MSI's website, intel's, and a bunch of others, and NONE of them worked.  Setup would install the drivers, but it still could not see any hard drives attached to it.  I'm not sure what caused this problem, but my best guess is that it had to do with the promise card being plugged in. 
I gave up on that and figured I'd try something else, maybe the promise card was causing the problem.  So I tried changing the ports that all my sata drives are plugged into.  The two new 320's were on 0 and 2, and I also had a drive on 3 4 and 5.  I read somewhere that intel had some array issues on 0 1 and 2, so I tried setting my 320's on 4 and 5 and moved my other drives around it.  This is also when I had the idea to remove my card reader and pull out the ultra ata 133 tx2 card. 
I was able then to see the dvd/cdrom in the boot sequence, put it first, and boot into vista setup.  VISTA ULTIMATE DID NOT ASK ME FOR ANY DRIVERS AT THIS POINT.  I'm not sure if it was the sata ports I had my drives plugged into or not, but at this point vista setup saw all my drives and I chose the 100 gb array and installation went smoothly.
Excellent… now I just have to install photoshop and see if it loads in 4 seconds like on my friends new computer with the stripe.  If not, then I'll probably just cry.
Hopefully I've covered enough of the keywords in this description that anyone who has this problem will  easily find this page.  Remember:
JMICRON IDE DEVICES CAN BE SEEN BY THE BIOS
VISTA SETUP DOES NOT NEED ANY ADDITIONAL DRIVERS TO INTERACT WITH THE RAID CONTROLLER
SORRY IF THIS WAS A TON OF INFORMATION BUT AFTER ALL THE TIME I SPENT TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT I FEEL LIKE NO ONE HAD POSTED A FULL BLOWN SOLUTION
Hope this was helpful

Answer 1

I have the very same issue except two things. When I try to see why it will not load the Array I find that the first drive (Maxtor 6V160E0) is red and considered to be bad. Did you happen to notice if your system showed the same thing?
I have moved the drives around and it still corrupts the Maxtor 6V160E0. I have not tried to move them to the end of the SATA connections. I will try that and see what happens.
Other thing was the JMicron would see my NEC DVDRW, but thought it was a ACSI and it would only read at 12X. It even stated that in the OS. I then was told by the Techs that they have not had alot of luck with NEC drives. So, I purchased a LiteOn SATA II DVDRW, connected it to the JMicron SATA connector and it came alive. I then found it to turn out worthless DVD's and CD's. Not even that Drive would read them after burning. I got so ticked about the JMicron I just shut it off in the BIOS. I hooked up the drive to the #4 port and whala, no more problems with burn. Now it reads, writes, and re-writes at the stated speeds (also I needed to update the firmware twice since I purchase the drive. The MS updates did something to it and the new firmware fixed it.). I have never been able to get a drive to work correctly on the JMicron no matter who made it.
I sure hope that MSI has scraped any board that will ever use that controller. JMircon is not my friend!
I am going to get 2 more SATA II drives and try this without having to backup all my data.