Stan Kay,

I have P5B Deluxe too, and I have to say I didn't see anything like what you
are experiencing. Actually, Vista install was beautifully seamless and it's
got all drivers installed either off the DVD or from Windows Update. Since
then I had quite a few problems with Vista, but none of them were
storage-related.

I have 2x80 Hitachi SATA drives in RAID0 connected to built-in Intel
controller as my system drive.

RAID5 is quite different than lower levels like RAID0 or 1 since it requires
much more work on part of the controller/driver during write operations.
There's a parity information that needs to be calculated for each block of
data being writed to disks and it must to be written down simultaneously
with actual data to provide redundancy. Usually RAID5 requires a separate
chip (and good one) on controller for this task for RAID5 volume to be
write-effective. And I've seen in the past some advanced controllers that
would bring Windows almost to the halt during excessive write activity on
RAID5 volumes.


I'd say the problem should be somewhere in between controller's RAID5
implementation, driver and your HDDs. Did you check if this controller has
any reported problems with RAID5 in general?


Sorry for not being too helpful with your problem, just thought I'd throw my
2 cents in.

--
Alexander Suhovey


"Stan Kay" <stan.kay@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:%238g6m65OHHA.2140@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
>I have installed Windows Vista Ultimate (build 6000) on my Asus P5B Deleuxe
>based PC but
> the system repeatedly produces "not responding" messages with virtually
> everything I try to do
> and so it is virtuallu unusable. After a tedious amount of time waiting
> for the system to allow me
> to do something, I have established the following:-
>
> 1. The iaStorV issue relates to the Intel 82801HR/HH/HO SATA Raid
> controller built into my ASUS P5B Deluxe motherboard.
> 2. iaStorV.sys is a driver loaded by Vista for this raid controller
> 3. I am using 3 Seagate Barracuda 500 Gb hard drives in RAID 5 and there
> is
> an issue with the RAID controller that causes the problem.
>
> I have tried to report this matter to ASUS technical support but their
> system refuses to accept my report on the grounds that I have given them
> an
> invalid email address - there is nothing wrong with my email address!
>
> Can anyone please offer any assistance?
>
>[/color]