Has anyone ever gotten the eSata port on an E6500 to work with Windows 7 64 Pro ?

Here are the tests that I've done:

Note: bios set to AHCI prior to installing windows

eSata Drive: Cavalry eSata / USB drive

1. Laptop 1: E6500, Windows 7 Pro 64, Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.9.2.1002

  eSata drive plugged into eSata port on E6500

  Result: eSata drive not recognized, hdd light stays on forever

2. Laptop 1 + Docking Station

  eSata drive plugged into eSata port on docking station

  Result: eSata drive works perfectly

At this point, I suspected hardware problem on E6500.  I built a new boot disk with Vista Business 32:

3. Laptop 1 (2nd disk): E6500, Vista Business SP1 32, Intel Matrix Storage Manager 8.8.0.1009

  eSata drive plugged into eSata port on E6500

  Result: eSata drive takes a few minutes to install drivers, but then it works

So now it appears to be a software / driver problem in Windows 7 64 or Intel Matrix Storage Manager.  Has anyone gotten this configuration to work?