Bug#485989: I can reproduce this

[Russell Coker]

/etc/mdadm# diff mdadm.conf mdadm.conf.broken
21c21
< ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 num-devices=2 
UUID=52978f9a52:9540e417:e3565b0a:1da235 name=bluebottle:2
---
> ARRAY /dev/md2 level=raid1 metadata=1 num-devices=2 
UUID=52978f9a52:9540e417:e3565b0a:1da235 name=bluebottle:2

The above is a diff between two versions of mdadm.conf.  The presence 
of "metadata=1" results in mkinitramfs producing an image that won't boot.  
Removing that (while leaving the "name=" section) results in making an 
initramfs that works.

Also note that I didn't use knoppix or any other distribution for this.  I 
created the software RAID-1 with Debian/Etch and chose the latest metadata 
format.  See below for more details about my RAIDs.

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md2 : active raid1 sdb2[0] sda2[2]
      976567116 blocks super 1.2 [2/2] [UU]
      bitmap: 0/8 pages [0KB], 65536KB chunk

md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
      192640 blocks [2/2] [UU]