Thanks ORAC
Lotta stuff out there hmmmm...hnnnn
Wading thru it but haven't found anything helpful so far.
From my other forays it seems that I'm not the only feller with these problems.
Just tried removing the Promise in DM (with the drive disconnected) and rebooting
Windoze found the Promise and reinstalled the drivers.
Switched off and plugged the drive in again & rebooted.
Back to the get-half-way through booting and reboot cycle
Removed the Promise in DM again rebooted with the drive connected.
Back to the get-half-way through booting and reboot cycle
(but apparently without finding The Promise and reinstalling the drivers) because...
Disconnected drive and rebooted
Windoze found the Promise and reinstalled the drivers
So may be IS a PS problem. But then why should everything work in "Safe" mode?
This is getting irritating and since I don't really need RAID and have better things to do I'm tempted to say fcuck it. It would be nice to have an extra drive channel tho....