On Sunday 20 Oct 2013 15:31:12 joost@antarean.org wrote:

> I would suggest trying it by usong the older metadata format.
> Check the man pages, but I thinl it would be --metadata=0.90 (or similar)
> during creation. That might put the metadata at the end, rather then at
> the front. (Or it's the other way round and new metadata does it at the
> end.)
> 
> --
> Joost
> Ps. I have never tried it this way (full disk raid for boot device) using
> linux software raid.

Ha!  Yes, this made a difference, thanks!  With metadata 0.90 I can see the 
same partitions I set up on /dev/md0, also on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.  The only 
problem now is that the Ubuntu server CD wants to format /dev/sda2 as swap and 
fails at that stage.  :-/

Not sure how to by-pass this.

I may also try metadata=1.0 to see if this makes a difference, which also 
positions the RAID data superblock at the end of the device:

Sub-Version	 Superblock Position on Device
-----------  -----------------------------
0.9	         At the end of the device
1.0	         At the end of the device
1.1	         At the beginning of the device
1.2	         4K from the beginning of the device

-- 
Regards,
Mick