Raid Utility not an option on Lion Recovery Disk

I am trying to delete a single RAID set that includes the startup volume.  I booted up with the Lion Recovery disk but only the disk utility is available as an option to erase information and no RAID utility is there.  I erased the startup volume and am re-installing.  If this doesn't fix the system so that I can try recreating the RAID set, does anyone have suggestions how to get back to the original four 2TB drives?
Thanks, Alison

To refine what the Hatter is saying...
1) take an external drive. (USB is really slow, but can be used in a pinch. Firewire interface is much faster, and worth the price difference. It should be a 3.5" drive, and have its own power supply.)
2) Install Mac OS X on the External drive.
3) Boot from the External drive. Now you have the full capabilities of Mac OS X to act on everything else in your Mac.
The Hatter often proposes that:
... rather than using a Utilities/Installer DVD or Recovery_HD to Install Mac OS X on an External drive from scratch, you can do just as good a job (and get a "free" bootable backup in the process) by:
2alt) Cloning from an existing Mac OS X drive to that same External drive.
[I am not sure you have that option at the moment, but it may be available when your system is stable again.]

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