sounds like a jmicro problem similar this
Intel® Matrix Storage Manager - Possible issues with Windows Vista* and Intel® RAID
How can this be overcome - bios does not offer ATA mode for SATA?
Other suggestions
Disconnect all drives (yes, floppy as well) except for the single SATA DVD drive you intend to use for the Vista DVD and the single hard drive you want as the installation partition. So if you have more than one hard drive disconnect all of them except the one you want to use as the install After the install and if Vista is working reconnect all the drives prior to software activation.
but this would invalidate the warranty