gistfile1.txt

During install, my /dev/sda was not recognized (even though fdisk -l shows it). I did, however, get prompted about enabling RAID devices.

blkid /dev/sda
/dev/sda: UUID="DELL     ^P(" TYPE="ddf_raid_member"

dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
Do you really want to erase "ddf1" ondisk metadata on /dev/sda? y/n :y
ERROR: ddf1: seeking device "/dev/sda" to 12803086946048
ERROR: writing metadata to /dev/sda, offset 250059349504 sectors, size 0 bytes returned 0
ERROR: erasing ondisk metadata on /dev/sda

mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sda
mdadm: Couldn't open /dev/sda for write - not zeroing

One or more drives containing MDADM containers (Intel/DDF RAID) have been found. Do you wish to activate these RAID devices?
Activate MDADM containers (Intel/DDF RAID)?

One or more drives containing Serial ATA RAID configurations have been found. Do you wish to activate these RAID devices?
Activate Serial ATA RAID devices?

----- Solution -------
Nuke it!
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 seek=$(( $(blockdev --getsz /dev/sda) - 1024 )) count=1024

now, blkid returns no meta data:
# blkid /dev/sda
#