>> What happens if you delete the volume in SoftRAID? this was the subject of my original post: trying to delete the volume in SoftRAID result...

Can I erase the volume in Disk Utility: Sort of... Disk utility prints the following: Unmounting diskCreating the partition mapWaiting for partitio...

No, same behavior. Note that I am starting from a condition after it had crashed at least once-- would there be any point in rebooting, and trying it...