shutting down/removing a software RAID array?

I've been looking for a solution but everyone seems to want to tell you how to set up a RAID array in Linux. I want to do the opposite. I was trying to install a RAID array on a running Debian Etch system and things didn't work out. Now I want to back out of it and start again from scratch. That is easier said than done.

I was following the HowtoForge howto on the subject (with some minor modifications). I started with 2 Western Digital Caviar 80G drives. They are both the same size but have different model numbers and geometries. My first pass was to dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc to clone the existing drive. Then in a fit of madness, I modified the partition table on /dev/hdc to have the partitions end on cylinder boundaries. Bad move, but not related to my current problem.

Having eventually decided to go back and start from scratch, I can't get the RAID array to cease to exist. My current state after redoing the dd is shown by this:
#cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md1 : active raid1 hdc[1]
60696128 blocks [2/1] [_U]

Somewhere along the line I must have inadvertently added /dev/hdc to the md1 array instead of /dev/hdc3. Even the dd to /dev/hdc didn't remove it. And after trying everything else I can think of to remove the software traces of the RAID array, a reboot still gives me md1 containing hdc.

Any ideas on how to get rid of md1 or at least get /dev/hdc out of it so it is empty?
.

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