I'm trying to:

• Take a system image of my current WIndows 7 x64 setup, which is using IDE-mode storage
• Enable RAID in the BIOS
• Install two new drives and set up a RAID mirror
• Restore my system image onto the new mirrored C: drive

The problem is - my existing Windows 7 install won't boot if the storage controller is set to RAID or AHCI mode (instead of IDE) in the BIOS.

The Windows 7 system recovery process works fine - will quite happily restore my old C: drive image onto the new mirrored C: drive - but then this won't boot, either.

I'm guessing that I need to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager RAID drivers - but if I try to do this with the BIOS configured to use IDE, the installer reports:

"This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software."

So - I can't boot with RAID enabled in order to install the drivers, and I can't install the drivers first in order to boot with RAID enabled.

Any bright ideas? Really rather not reinstall if I can help it.