mdadm can't find partitions

[Don Hayward <don@pomobuli.net>]

System is AMD64- Debian-Pure64 Testing, smp
MB is Tyan Tiger - sil onboard sata plus promise 2x sata pci controller.

mimus:/home/don# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

   8     0   78150744 sda
   8     1   78148161 sda1
   8    16  156290904 sdb
   8    17  156288321 sdb1
   8    32  156290904 sdc
   8    33  156288321 sdc1
   8    48  156290904 sdd
   8    49  156288321 sdd1
   8    64  156290904 sde
   8    65  156288321 sde1
   8    80   78150744 sdf
   8    81   78148161 sdf1
   9     0   78148096 md0

mimus:/home/don# mdadm --create /dev/md1 --force --level=5 --raid-devices=4 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1
mdadm: error opening /dev/md1: No such file or directory

I'm really stumped by this.  I put a file system on each disk, no
change, repartitioned each disk with type fd, no change, tried
changing disk order by swapping cables, no change, zero-superblocked
each partition, no change, tried setting each partition missing in
succession, no change for any configuration.

I had the system running, had a drive failure that crashed the
raid5. When I tried to add the replacement drive, this behavior
started.  So I re-installed this system, and the d-i was able to build
/dev/md1, and it survived through reboot.  But I upgraded my kernel to
smp, rebooted and it disappeared.  Now booting into the original
kernel doesn't bring any change.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Don
________________
Don Hayward at pomobuli.net