Automatic RAID detection problem

[Benjamin Hornberger <bho gmx net>]

I installed a RAID1 system (manually, not using Disk Druid) on a Redhat 9 
machine, but the automatic RAID detection when booting the machine doesn't 
work -- I have to do a "raidstart /dev/md0" before I can mount the drive. 
According to all documentation, software RAID should be detected 
automatically on boot, so that you can mount through /etc/fstab.

-----
# /etc/raidtab
raiddev /dev/md0
        raid-level      1
        nr-raid-disks   2
        nr-spare-disks  0
        chunk-size      32
        persistent-superblock   1
        device          /dev/hdb1
        raid-disk       0
        device          /dev/hdd1
        raid-disk       1

[root host1]# mkraid /dev/md0
[root host1]# mke2fs -j /dev/md0
-----

On boot, I get the following message:
Starting up RAID devices: md0(skipped)

From /var/log/dmesg:
dmesg:md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
dmesg:md: RAID level 1 does not need chunksize! Continuing anyway.

From /var/log/messages:
messages:Oct 31 16:05:11 host1 kernel: md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
messages:Oct 31 16:05:11 host1 kernel: md: RAID level 1 does not need 
chunksize! Continuing anyway.

Directly after boot:

-----
[root host1]# mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid/
/dev/md0: Invalid argument
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
[root host1]#  raidstart /dev/md0
[root host1]#  mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid/
-----

(works)

The hard drives involved are /dev/hdb and /dev/hdd, both 250 GB Maxtor ATA 
drives, with one partition. The system itself is installed on /dev/sda.

-----
[root host1]# fdisk /dev/hdb
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30515.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1             1     30515 245111706   fd  Linux raid autodetect
-----

(same for /dev/hdd)


From 
http://unthought.net/Software-RAID.HOWTO/Software-RAID.HOWTO-4.html#ss4.10:

-----
Autodetection allows the RAID devices to be automatically recognized by the 
kernel at boot-time, right after the ordinary partition detection is done.

This requires several things:

* You need autodetection support in the kernel. Check this
* You must have created the RAID devices using persistent-superblock
* The partition-types of the devices used in the RAID must be set to 0xFD 
(use fdisk and set the type to "fd")
-----

About the first point, I am not completely sure -- how can I check this? 
But from the messages I get during boot, I suspect that in principal, RAID 
detection is supported. The second and third point I did, as you can see 
above.

I am not a Linux pro -- thanks for every bit of help.