getting desparate

I've done the wipefs -a to all 4 drives, no perms to pvcreate them 
again, error msg claim they are already in useso I've used mc to nuke 
the whole backup tree in /dev. Updated 134 pkgs with apt & rebooted it. 
wipefs -a -ff /dev/sda to /dev/sdd as root has been done. But only the 
unallocated /dev/sdd reports anything. The full /dev/backup path has 
been removed, along with the previous mount point.

root@amanda:~# lvmdiskscan
   /dev/sda          [      <3.73 TiB] *
   /dev/mmcblk0p1    [    <117.89 GiB]
   /dev/sdb          [      <3.73 TiB] *
   /dev/sdc          [      <3.64 TiB] *
   /dev/mmcblk1      [      14.56 GiB]
   /dev/sdd          [      <3.64 TiB] *
   /dev/mmcblk1boot0 [       4.00 MiB]
   /dev/sde1         [      <3.64 TiB]
   /dev/mmcblk1boot1 [       4.00 MiB]
   4 disks
   5 partitions
   0 LVM physical volume whole disks
   0 LVM physical volumes

The * marked devices are to be 100% combined into dailyset > dm-0, by 
brute -ff force if needed. But pvcreate won't touch them except /dev/sdd 
which wasn't allocated in the first 10t example. I want to use every 
byte of that 17.76t for amanda storage. I am well aware that the 
database amanda keeps may need to be a subdir on the holdingdisk 
(3.64TiB) as the u-sd it boots from is only 128GiB. In fact, when I find 
where in tuncket the debian patches actually stores the missing 
amanda.conf, that will likely be the first edit of amanda.conf. That was 
several gigabytes in the previous incarnation of amanda that died along 
with both Seagate 2T drives with less than 2 weeks spin time almost 4 
years ago

So, Whats next? pvcreate won't touch them even with -ff. Even after 
wipfs-ing them. Something, someplace still has a lock on them.

Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis