iTunes Vista RAID array destruction - and a lost weekend fixing it
It took me two re-installations of Vista on my new Dell to realise that's where the problem was. You just don't expect an installed program like iTunes to mess with your RAID arrays.
With no solution in sight, and Dell, MS and Apple all ignoring the problem - the only solution was to come off RAID.
Considering my new Dell has already lost me days whilst struggling with their innovative "out-of-the-box-at-no-extra-charge-bug-that-would-cause-BSOD-for-RAID-PCs-gulp!" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/28/dell_vista_raid/), I'm hoping removing RAID will have a similar effect to removing tonsils. Had I known it would waste so much of my time, I wouldn't have bothered.
The bigger question, I suppose, is what happens to those poor souls who haven't got years of experience in fixing buggy computers. Joe Blogs would expect his new purchase to ‘just work’.
Come to think of it, perhaps that’s why I've become so popular with my friends over the last few years. "What's that blue screen, Danny?" they say. Quite.