attention if have any nvidia motherboard and having

Read this very carefully, it works on single SATA and SATA RAID and IDE RAID. This will solve most of your blue, black, purple screens of death, it will solve your "not installing correctly" issues, it will solve your "constant re-boot" issues, it will solve your lack of a girlfriend....ooops, that might not help...LOL
So here it is and read carefully
After wrangling for hours here is what worked for me and many other people. Vista does not include the nessessary drivers to do a clean install from the DVD. You can do a clean install, just you have to do it from an exsisting OS.
Guide for a successful install of Vista Beta2 onto an nForce4 SataRaid system
Preparations: As Vista Beta2 does not contain the necessary nForce SataRaid drivers, users with an nForce Raid array have to download not only Vista, but also the latest nForce drivers. a) SataRaid drivers for Vista x86: You will find them here. Download the 32-bit driver package named nforce_vista32beta2_english.zip, unzip it and copy the content of the IDE\driver\LEGACY folder onto an empty floppy disk or thumbdrive. I used my thumbdrive. b) SataRaid drivers for Vista x64: You will find them here. Download the 64-bit driver package named nforce_vista64beta2_english.zip, unzip it and copy the content of the IDE\driver\LEGACY folder onto an empty floppy disk or thumbdrive. I used my thumbdrive. You may find these drivers in another folder but they are there.
The next step is the preparation of an empty partition of your Raid array for the later Vista installation. Run any OS of your Raid and create a new partition (size: 20-30 GB) or do a quick format of an equivalent and not needed existing partition. Be aware to format the designed Vista installation place with NTFS file system. After you have done that, you can begin with the installation
Warning: Especially Vista x64 needs a rock stable system during the installation. If you have an overclocked system or critical RAM sticks, you will get BSOD's, missing files or sudden reboots during the Vista installation. Suggestion: Set the default BIOS timings before you begin with the Vista Setup.
Installation procedure: Run Windows XP (if you want to install Vista x86) or Windows XP x64 (if you want to install Vista x64) and put the Vista DVD into your DVD device. Don't choose an Update, but a clean install. Vista setup will show then all existing partitions of your Raid array and asks you, where you want to get Vista installed. Point at the partition you have prepared before by formatting. Important: Although Vista sees all partitions of your Raid at this time, it would forget them all after the first reboot, if you would not load the necessary nForce SataRaid drivers. So you have to hit the button "Load drivers" and put your prepared driver floppy into your floppy device. Vista will show you all drivers, which seem to be compatible to your nForce chipset. One after the other you should choose a) the "NVIDIA nForce(tm) RAID Class Controller" b) the "NVIDIA nForce(tm) RAID Class Device" [not really necessary, just to avoid the annoying pop-up message, that a driver is missing] and c) one of the devices "NVIDIA nForce4 Serial ATA Controller" . After a hit on the "Refresh" button you can click on the "Next" button.
The rest of the installation is very easy and will work like a charme. At the end of the install you can enjoy Vista Beta2 on your nForce SataRaid array.
-- 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 Senior Member Overclockers.com

I just wanted to thank you for the post. It really helped me get the Vista 64bit Beta 2 installed.
-- LavaIce ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LavaIce's Profile: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/member.php?userid=36 View this thread: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/showthread.php?t=4735