Recovery HD partition disappears when I install Mavericks. File Vault 2 can't be turned on.

Question

Hi folks,
I've run into this issue and repeated internet searches don't turn up anyone else having the same problem.
Until a couple of days ago, I've had the most recent version of Mountain Lion installed with File Vault 2 turned on. Everything has been fine.
I did a clean install of Mavericks, and everything went fine with the install. During the post-install set up, I get a window saying that I used to have FV2 turned on, and that to do so again requires me turning it on in System Preferences. So I try to do that, but then I get a message saying that "some disk formats do not support the recovery partion that needs to be created...".
So I look (using both diskutil list and enabling the debug menu in Disk Utility) and see that the Recovery HD is gone. I don't know how to recreate it and don't understand the command line partitioning well enough to try it, so I try again with Mavericks, doing it the long way:
I do a clean install of Lion.
Boot up into Lion, and verify that the Recovery HD partition was created. It was.
Boot up from the Mavericks bootable USB I made, erase just the main partition I intend to install Mavericks on (again, I see Recovery HD exists).
Install Mavericks.
Boot up from the internal HD Mavericks, get the same note about turning on FV2 manually, and try to do so.
It fails again. I use diskutil and Disk Utility with the debug menu, and sure enough Recovery HD is gone and I cannot turn on FV2.
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I feel like this would be a more widely discussed issue if this were a pure Mavericks issue. But Apple is not giving us a lot of support for doing clean installs (all instructions I find are on tech nerd blogs), so I'm lost about where to begin.
Thanks for your help.
It is Thu Oct 24 08:32:28 MDT 2013.
< Thu 8:32am ~ > diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Tesla                   499.2 GB   disk0s2

Answer 1

FWIW, I did a clean install of Mavericks with a bootable USB drive, which I created following the instructions in this link:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/10/22/perform-clean-install-os-x-mavericks/
The short method did not work. I succeeded with the longer method.
Mavericks installed without a hitch, after which I spent hours customizing settings, clean installing applications and restoring data from my prior Mountain Lion backup. No problems at all, just very time consuming.
However, I could not activate "Find my Mac" because the installer had not created a a Recovery HD. I trawled the forums and was discouraged by the apparent complexity of creating one.
This is what I did, which worked perfectly and required very little attention. It is almost automatic, fail proof and done in under an hour (with a fast internet connection to download Mavericks at just over 5GB).
1.- Back up the system. Better still, clone your system to an external HD using Carbon Copy Cloner.
2.- Download Mavericks from the App Store.
3.- It will warn you that you already have 10.9 installed. Download anyway.
4.- When it finishes downloading you'll get a window prompting you to install. Confirm.
5.- Enter your user password when prompted.
6.- Go for a walk. In about 45 min your system will have restarted Mavericks and all your settings, applications and data will be there.
7.- Check that you now have a Recovery HD by restarting the system, holding the Option key down when you hear the startup gong. You'll (hopefully) see the system HD and the Recovery HD (10.9).
Hope this will help someone.