I suspect the two ARRAY definitions are rather confusing for mdadm. Willow, your issue sounds very different, and is mostly a result of md's "powerful" features which allow you to totally screw things up.
As such, and given that htis has gone so long without independent confirmation, I am marking this as Incomplete. If anybody subscribed or affected has more to add, please come back and set the status back to New. Otherwise it will expire in 60 days. ** Changed in: mdadm (Ubuntu) Status: New => Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332235 Title: RAID5 partitions disappear after initial reboot [old superblocks] -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs