stimzuk
Try installing CentOS 5.8 which is the base OS used by sme8.0.
Try physically unplugging ALL the SATA connectors & reinserting them.
Try swapping the drive ends of the SATA cables & then reinstall, observe if the hda ID moves to the other drive or not, make a note of which drive is which by checking serial numbers.
Doing this should isolate whether the drive is the issue or whether the cable/controller/software is the issue.
Try installing sme server to only one drive, try each drive (one at a time with the other physically disconnected) as a one drive degraded array mode, and also as no RAID mode (ie single drive only) using one of the command line install switches. This should help identify whether the software RAID is or is not involved here.
Depending on the results of the above, you could try the same single drive tests using CentOS 5.8
Theses tests are just intended to help you indentify, via a process of elimination, as to where the problem is.