On 10/19/2017 02:17 PM, NeilBrown wrote:

Anything is better than nothing..  Can we get a photo of "mdadm
--examine" output on one of the devices (e.g. /dev/sda1) ??

Also, what mdadm version (mdadm -V) and kernel version (uname -r)?

https://imgur.com/x2rZEl5

I included an --examine of sda1 and sdf.

mdadm never tries to edit mdadm.conf.
It does modify files in /run/mdadm (or maybe /var/run/mdadm).
Can we get a photo of that audit log?

I was mistaken, I think. It looks like mdadm tried to read (??) the file
and the context for the file was not set properly:

https://imgur.com/5UvFExp

In order to "fix" the issue, I ran sealert against the audit.log and
followed it's instructions, producing a rules file.

I'm very suspicious of these new drives appearing to have not metadata.
Can you
   od -x /dev/sdf | head
   od -x /dev/sdf | grep a92b
and provide a photo of the output?

grep'ing a92b scrolled off the screen, so I grabbed a portion of it,
ctrl-c' and included head:

https://imgur.com/WDcAYBc

Thanks for the help so far.