Installing RAID drivers for Windows 7 install

[alexvont12]

Okay, I'm working on a brand new computer I just built, and I'm running into a problem installing Windows 7.

With bios set to ACHI, I had [strike]no[/strike] issues, getting Windows up and running on one of my Samsung 950 Pro's.
The problem is when I set up my raid array in bios. The Windows install program does not see my sata cd-rom drive, and this motherboard "does not support usb during windows 7 install due to limitations." So I have no way to load any drivers I need. I'm assuming I just need intel's raid/sata controller drivers, and everything should work, but there no way to get them with a usb flash drive, or a burned cd.

I'm going to work on it again in a few days (not my computer, it's at someone else's house) and I have a few ideas that I wondering if you guys would think would work.

1. I found some freeware called NT Lite, that should allow me to clone my Win7 install disk, but with integrated drivers. I haven't been able to download the program or test it out yet, but I've read that it helped people back when WinXP had sata/raid driver problems.

2. Find an old hard drive that I can install Windows on, install needed drivers, and then clone the os from that hard drive, to my raid array. The os cloning process I'm not familiar with, so I'm worried that once I put my bios into raid mode, that hard drive won't be seen (being a sata drive, like my cd-rom).

If you guys have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Specs:
MDI z170a X Power Gaming Titanium
Intel i5 6600k
2x Samsung 950 Pro 512gb ssd's
Nvidia GTX 1080
G.Skill Ripjaw V 8gb x2
LG WH16NS40 disk drive

 

[slingsrat]

I'm not sure what you mean by "The Windows install program does not see my sata cd-rom drive" Where is the windows install program?

 

[alexvont12]

My motherboard sees the cd drive just fine. When I boot from the Windows install disk, I get a "A required CD/DVD driver is missing" pop-up. When it gives me an option to locate and load drivers, my cd drive doesn't appear as an option to browse to..

However, in ACHI, I don't receive that pop-up, and it will let me browse to the cd drive to load drivers (I had to burn and load ssd drivers for Windows to see the ssd's).