> Did you do an "mdadm --stop /dev/md1"? You should > always do that between every attempt. > Yes, that was exactly the problem - I forgot to stop it. After that, the array assembled perfectly, and fsck showed no problems with the array. I was able to salvage all the data. Wouldn't have been able to do it without your help! Now on to the array of larger disks: md0 consists of 4x 8TB drives: role drive events state 0 sdb 10080 A.AA (bad blocks reported on this drive) 1 sdc 10070 AAAA 2 sdd 10070 AAAA 3 sde 10080 A.AA (bad blocks reported on this drive) I used the same approach, ddrescue-ing sd[b-e] to sd[f-i]. No errors during the copy. Then I stopped md0 and force-assembled the array from the copies. That seems to have gone well.: bill@bill-desk:~$ sudo mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md0 /dev/sd[f-i]1 mdadm: forcing event count in /dev/sdg1(1) from 10070 upto 10080 mdadm: forcing event count in /dev/sdh1(2) from 10070 upto 10080 mdadm: clearing FAULTY flag for device 1 in /dev/md0 for /dev/sdg1 mdadm: Marking array /dev/md0 as 'clean' mdadm: /dev/md0 has been started with 4 drives. checked the status of md0: bill@bill-desk:~$ sudo mdadm -D /dev/md0 /dev/md0: Version : 1.2 Creation Time : Sat Sep 22 19:10:10 2018 Raid Level : raid5 Array Size : 23441679360 (22355.73 GiB 24004.28 GB) Used Dev Size : 7813893120 (7451.91 GiB 8001.43 GB) Raid Devices : 4 Total Devices : 4 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Intent Bitmap : Internal Update Time : Sat Jan 4 16:58:47 2020 State : clean Active Devices : 4 Working Devices : 4 Failed Devices : 0 Spare Devices : 0 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Consistency Policy : bitmap Name : bill-desk:0 (local to host bill-desk) UUID : 06ad8de5:3a7a15ad:88116f44:fcdee150 Events : 10080 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 81 0 active sync /dev/sdf1 1 8 97 1 active sync /dev/sdg1 2 8 113 2 active sync /dev/sdh1 4 8 129 3 active sync /dev/sdi1 Then checked with fsck: bill@bill-desk:~$ sudo fsck /dev/md0 fsck from util-linux 2.34 e2fsck 1.45.3 (14-Jul-2019) /dev/md0: recovering journal /dev/md0: clean, 11274/366276608 files, 5285497435/5860419840 blocks Everything seems ok. Then I examined each disk: ill@bill-desk:~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sd[f-i] /dev/sdf: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) /dev/sdg: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) /dev/sdh: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) /dev/sdi: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) bill@bill-desk:~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/sd[f-i]1 /dev/sdf1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x9 Array UUID : 06ad8de5:3a7a15ad:88116f44:fcdee150 Name : bill-desk:0 (local to host bill-desk) Creation Time : Sat Sep 22 19:10:10 2018 Raid Level : raid5 Raid Devices : 4 Avail Dev Size : 15627786240 (7451.91 GiB 8001.43 GB) Array Size : 23441679360 (22355.73 GiB 24004.28 GB) Data Offset : 264192 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors Unused Space : before=264112 sectors, after=0 sectors State : clean Device UUID : ab1323e0:9c0426cf:3e168733:b73e9c5c Internal Bitmap : 8 sectors from superblock Update Time : Wed Jan 15 15:35:37 2020 Bad Block Log : 512 entries available at offset 40 sectors - bad blocks present. Checksum : f1599c42 - correct Events : 10080 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Device Role : Active device 0 Array State : AAAA ('A' == active, '.' == missing, 'R' == replacing) /dev/sdg1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x1 Array UUID : 06ad8de5:3a7a15ad:88116f44:fcdee150 Name : bill-desk:0 (local to host bill-desk) Creation Time : Sat Sep 22 19:10:10 2018 Raid Level : raid5 Raid Devices : 4 Avail Dev Size : 15627786240 (7451.91 GiB 8001.43 GB) Array Size : 23441679360 (22355.73 GiB 24004.28 GB) Data Offset : 264192 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors Unused Space : before=264112 sectors, after=0 sectors State : clean Device UUID : c875f246:ce25d947:a413e198:4100082e Internal Bitmap : 8 sectors from superblock Update Time : Wed Jan 15 15:35:37 2020 Bad Block Log : 512 entries available at offset 40 sectors Checksum : 7a1de7a - correct Events : 10080 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Device Role : Active device 1 Array State : AAAA ('A' == active, '.' == missing, 'R' == replacing) /dev/sdh1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x1 Array UUID : 06ad8de5:3a7a15ad:88116f44:fcdee150 Name : bill-desk:0 (local to host bill-desk) Creation Time : Sat Sep 22 19:10:10 2018 Raid Level : raid5 Raid Devices : 4 Avail Dev Size : 15627786240 (7451.91 GiB 8001.43 GB) Array Size : 23441679360 (22355.73 GiB 24004.28 GB) Data Offset : 264192 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors Unused Space : before=264112 sectors, after=0 sectors State : clean Device UUID : fd0634e6:6943f723:0e30260e:e253b1f4 Internal Bitmap : 8 sectors from superblock Update Time : Wed Jan 15 15:35:37 2020 Bad Block Log : 512 entries available at offset 40 sectors Checksum : beeffd56 - correct Events : 10080 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Device Role : Active device 2 Array State : AAAA ('A' == active, '.' == missing, 'R' == replacing) /dev/sdi1: Magic : a92b4efc Version : 1.2 Feature Map : 0x9 Array UUID : 06ad8de5:3a7a15ad:88116f44:fcdee150 Name : bill-desk:0 (local to host bill-desk) Creation Time : Sat Sep 22 19:10:10 2018 Raid Level : raid5 Raid Devices : 4 Avail Dev Size : 15627786240 (7451.91 GiB 8001.43 GB) Array Size : 23441679360 (22355.73 GiB 24004.28 GB) Data Offset : 264192 sectors Super Offset : 8 sectors Unused Space : before=264112 sectors, after=0 sectors State : clean Device UUID : 8c628aed:802a5dc8:9d8a8910:9794ec02 Internal Bitmap : 8 sectors from superblock Update Time : Wed Jan 15 15:35:37 2020 Bad Block Log : 512 entries available at offset 40 sectors - bad blocks present. Checksum : 7b4adb4a - correct Events : 10080 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K Device Role : Active device 3 Array State : AAAA ('A' == active, '.' == missing, 'R' == replacing) All 4 drives have the same event count and all four show the same state of AAAA, but the first and last drive still show bad blocks present. Is that because ddrescue copied literally everything from the original drives, including the list of bad blocks? How should I go about clearing those bad blocks? Is there something more I should do to verify the integrity of the data? Thanks so much for your help! Bill