Sylvia; I have a MSI Z97 Gaming 7 Mobo with a Core I7 4790K running Win 8.1 loaded on a SSD. I just updated to this Mobo and CPU configuration. I've done a clean install of Win 8.1. I have four HHD's that I am trying configure for RAID usage. My problem is that when I set the BIOS SATA mode to RAID, Win 8.1 will not completely load. I am able to create a RAID Volume in the IRST with no problem. During boot however, Win 8.1 tries to load, but after a few secs, a message flashes across the screen to the effect Windows has encountered a problem and will reboot. Since my problem sounded a little like Eric's, I downloaded the driver you recommended for Eric, but I got a "Platform Not Supported" message. There is no RAID driver showing up in Device Manager all be it I can only see the Device Manager when in ACHI mode so maybe the RAID driver doesn't show up unless in RAID mode?. So that may be normal. I've ran the Intel Driver Update utility, which didn't report any out of date drivers. I also loaded what are supposedly the latest SATA/RAID drivers from MSI. I also updated the BIOS to the latest version. I've noticed that just setting the SATA Mode to RAID without creating a RAID volume causes the same problem. The SATA ACHI driver is Version 13. 1.0.11058. Don't know if the RAID driver would be the same version. If it is normal for the RAID driver not to show up in the Device Manager unless in RAID mode, how do I know if one is loaded at all? I've seen some suggestions that you have do the Win 8.1 install in RAID mode to get the RAID drivers installed, but don't know how that works works.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.