Vista - Severe issues with Asus P5WD2-E motherboard

Hi,

I have been trying desperately to install Vista Ultimate 32 on my Asus
P5WD2-E Premium mobo currently running WinXP Pro.

I got two hard drives configured as a RAID1 on the Intel ICH7R controller.
The RAID drive is divided into two partitions with one of them holding the
OS. I did the installation as a custom install and used a driver floppy with
the latest Intel RAID drivers (6.2.1.1002). My bios version is 0604

Installation runs pretty smoothly all the way to the reboot. Then I get the
startup progress "cyclops" but after that the screen just goes black. It does
not reboot or give me bsod. It just does not go any further...

There are plenty of people on the web reporting the same problem. I have
tried to contact all companies involved but to no avail:

-Asus is pointing fingers at Intel. The are also not planning on certifying
the mobo for Vista any time soon.
-Intel is pointing fingers at Micorosoft and claim that they have tested the
drivers in their "laboratory" without any issues.
-Microsoft does not point any fingers (so far)

Anyone with the same problem or a solution?

Regards
HA