> > I may as well use wipefs to clear crud from both drives, partition and > > format them and then use them elsewhere. -- this more or less > > accurately summarise the situation? > > Unfortunately, yes.
I recall the machine these drives were in lost the onboard NIC when the desktop switch it was connected to went up in smoke. Perhaps it was at that point the corruption occurred, albeit I seem to recall checking the drives at the time. Such is life. If they pass extended SMART tests they'll go back into use.
