Hello ldw,
I am sorry you are having problems with the system but let me help you.
It is important to say that in order to have enabled the acceleration feature you must comply with the requirements at this link:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-032826.htm
Since you have a laptop, most of the times Computer Manufacture set limitations on their units that we cannot over pass.
In regards to your question, it is necessary to have the chipset mode set as RAID but doing this, if the Operating System was installed in AHCI it will not boot once it has been changed. In the case you set it as RAID it will be necessary to install the Operating System.