HELP! My RAID0 status is offline and I can't figure out why

[Nester]

Hey all, hoping someone can give me some advice for what to do with this situation I am having.

First of all, my components relevant to this issue:

-asus m5a 990fx r2.0 amd motherboard
-2x samsung 840 120gb ssd's


My problem is this: i am doing a fresh installation of windows 8.1 onto my pc, and wanting to install it onto my raid 0 array which is comprised of two samsung 840 120gb ssds. in my motherboard settings i have set the configuration to RAID and not AHCI, made sure the drives are recognized, and using the motherboard's southbridge chipset, successfully created a raid 0 array with those two drives. I have setmy boot order to my optical drive and then the ssd raid 0.

however when i boot and install windows, when it comes to the point to pick what drive to install to it says that there are none found. At first I thought I had found the solution to this problem by pointing to the raid drivers that were on the motherboard disk, but even then the drives are not recognized by the windows install.

upon multiple attempts rebooting, i see a screen flash quickly by that does say the status of the raid 0 array is offline, which to me would explain why i do not see it. however, i do not know how to make it online, nowhere in settings can i find this option. I read online it often means a drive failure, but I have tested both disks individually and they are both perfectly fine.

if anyone can explain to me what is happening here or how to fix it I would GREATLY appreciate it!

thanks in advance