It could be the fact that you do NOT have to edit /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and add in support for raid1. This may counteract and could be the problem.

Here is the debian docs for raid and etch:

With initramfs, specify 'break=mount' as a kernel boot command line option, and commence the boot process. Eventually, you will be dumped into a shell. From here, you can execute

./scripts/local-top/mdadm

and inspect the output. If you want to see what exactly the script is doing, run

sh -x ./scripts/local-top/mdadm

instead.

Your primary goal is the assembly of the array(s) needed to bring up your root filesystem. If the above script fails to do that, take note of its output (for a later bug report), and then proceed to simply assemble the array by hand.

For instance, if your root array is on /dev/md1, which is made up of /dev/sdabc1, just run:

/sbin/mdadm -A --auto=yes /dev/md1 --run /dev/sd[[abc]]1
/sbin/mdadm -Q /dev/md1  # to verify

If your root filesystem is on multiple arrays (e.g. on LVM), repeat for each constituent array.

When you are done, hit ctrl-d and watch the system boot.

Wipe Raid Array/Hard disk: mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0