@mk here we are: badblocks test (R-W) of second partition of the 'bad' drive, which sits smack above the area where ddrescue reported 360+ of the 369 bad blocks to be... now has ZERO bad blocks!! looks like my strategy of 'scrubbing' (repeatedly writing over teh whole surface) was successful after all (but I'll keep a close eye on it). On to the third partition...

@mk here we are: badblocks test (R-W) of second partition of the 'bad' drive, which sits smack above the area where ddrescue reported 360+ of the 369 bad blocks to be... now has ZERO bad blocks!! looks like my strategy of 'scrubbing' (repeatedly writing over teh whole surface) was successful after all (but I'll keep a close eye on it). On to the third partition...