Vista - Issues with Sil 3112A SATA Chip Caused Headaches, But Happy Ending

I figured I should post this message to help anyone else who experiences the
same issues I had installing Vista, so they can avoid the same pitfalls I
experienced.

System and Setup:

Pentium 4 3.0 HT 800 MHz. Bus
1 GB PC 3000 RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB
875P Chipset
On Board Sound

I wanted to dual boot Windows XP Pro SP2 (already intalled on a 95 GB
partition) and Vista on a 25 GB parition (currently reserved for an unused
Linux installation).

First problem occured as soon as the installer started, the mouse didn't
work! As it turns out unpluging and pluging in the USB mouse activated it,
but this is a strange glitch,

That hurdle cleared next came the partitioning step. First go, no drives
appeared (interestingly my iPod shows up in XP setup but not here). The SATA
chip (a Sil 3112A) on my motherbaord was not recongized. I first tried the
driver I had succsessfully used to install XP, but to not avail. Reading
some other forums I tried downloading the newest software for the 3512 chip
(which contained the 3112A driver) directly from Silicon Image's site. This
driver worked flawlessly.

The partitioning system with Vista was great, I successfully reworked the
partitions in a way that would put Vista where it needed to be without
impacting XP Pro. The install process from there was basically eventful
until the first reboot. First a logical deliema, should I boot from the
disk or the hard drive, guessing on the hard drive I reached a OS selection
screen and tried Vista. I recieved a message that Winboot.exe was corrupt
and my system restarted. When my system came back around I booted to the DVD
following the instructions to do a recovery. When I tried the recovery step
I again had to install the SATA driver, however this time I was presented
with a long list of options. Fortunatly the first driver choice was right.
Almost immeadily Vista said it detected an error in the boot loader and that
it had been repaired. Next time around, booting off the hard drive, Vista
went back to the installer and the process finished. Strange yes, but
success!

Now Vista and XP Pro are behaving nicely together, booting back and forth
being a breeze. So desptie the headaches I'm enjoying the new interface and
features.

Suggestions for Microsoft:

1) Include a driver for the SIL 3112A chipset!
2) Fix the mouse glitch.
3) Simplify the driver selection process when "recovering" in the installer.
4) Clarify the hibernate button on the start menu, I at first thought it was
a shutdown and that my computer had frozen (whoops!).

(The 3 score Vista gave my system was disappointing, should by a 4! )