Intel Rapid Storage Technology Service is not running

You are talking about something called Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST).  It is a relatively recent (late 2009 / early 2010) successor to the Intel Matrix Storage Manager (IMSM) technology.  It was introduced in conjunction with the debut of Windows 7.

Both allow you to configure your computer to use hardware-based RAID (provided you have a supported Intel chipset).  See these links on Wikipedia for an overview of RAID concepts and on the Intel website for an overview of Intel's implementation of RAID:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
• http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm

With Intel's implementation of RAID there is a device driver which gets loaded at system startup and then there is a management tool (with a graphical user interface) that you can bring up (once Windows is running) to view the status of your storage volumes, change settings, and deal with problems).  The icon you refer to is placed in the notification area by the management tool to indicate the health status of your storage volumes.  Normally it would show a picture of a disk drive with a green checkmark ("Status OK") but it will show other things to indicate if there's a problem or if it's doing something like rebuilding a volume.

Anyway, I have encountered the same icon/message on my system (Windows 7 x64 with Intel RST 9.6 installed).  On my system it shows up for about 1-2 minutes immediately after Windows starts up and I log in.  It eventually changes to the "OK" (green checkmark).

On my system I think it's just a timing problem with the multiplicity of services that startup when Windows itself starts up.  I am satisfied that things are OK for me.  My issue only began after I upgraded from Intel RST 9.5 to Intel RST 9.6.

I would recommend that you check whether it stays there indefinitely on your system or if it's just temporary (as I've described for my system).

Hope this helps...

Thanks for your response.  How do I find out which chipset I have in my PC and where do I fing the sata driver?  Sorry to be a problem but this is driving me nuts.  I hate to have the system not performoing as it is supposed to.  Thanks in advance.

Thanks for your response.  Unfortunately, my icon stays yellow - it does not turn to green.  I have the Windows 7 x64 but don't know which chipset or version of the RST I have installed on the PC.  How can I find out what I have?  Thanks.

Intel describes several ways of identifying your chipset on the web page referenced below; the easiest way (& the one I would recommend) is for you to download & run their Chipset Identification Utility.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-009245.htm

It should identify your chipset as something like ICH7R, ICH8R, ICH9R or similar (the "R" designates RAID support).

There is no SATA driver per se; you are probably asking about the Intel RST driver.  Intel provides the driver and the storage utility here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/detail_desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=&DwnldID=15251&strOss=&OSFullName=&lang=eng

They provide something called an "F6 Floppy Driver" (for use at system install time - i.e. when Installing Windows itself) and the Intel RST Storage Utility (which is installed afterward).  To my knowledge, if you have an earlier driver installed, it will be upgraded if/when you upgrade the Storage Utility.

Read the following also; apparently with Windows 7 you don't even need to use the F6 Floppy Driver (the implication is a basic version of this driver is included with Windows 7):

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18861&lang=eng

Lastly, before trying to upgrade any software, I would suggest that you look into the Storage Utility and see what it's complaining about.  The yellow icon indicates a problem (which could be one of several things); you need to open the utility to reveal the details.

If you post back here again, I think it would be good for you to reply with both your chipset version and details of what the issue is.