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At first glance, things look pretty good so it should be easy reassemble the array.
 
The reason it didn' t happen automatically it's because the event count between sda, sdc is different from sdb, sdd, sde. Fortunately the difference is very small, so data on the RAID should still be ok.
 
First you need to stop the array
 
mdadm --stop /dev/md0
 
Let's try to re assemble without --force option
 
mdadm /dev/md0 --assemble /dev/sd[abcde]
 
Let us know if it works. If yes then you array should start the syncing process (cat /prod/mdstat), you could share the output of mdadm -D /dev/md0
 
If if fails, please show the output. Next step, if previous one failed, it's to try assemble with --force option.  Please take note that if --force is used you might end up with few file corrupted (whatever writing operation that happen in the difference of event count, in your case the difference of event count is very small).
 
mdadm /dev/md0 --assemble --force /dev/sd[abcde]
 
Same here, share output of cat /prod/mdstat and mdadm -D /dev/md0

Hi again,
 
Yes, the lights were solid blue after boot (power and hdds, nothing else), so the comment about not getting a clean boot make sense.
 
I was monitoring the router but no ip was coming up for it, so this again makes sense as it wasn’t really booting with the sd card.
 
Here’s what actually worked last evening (don’t remember the exact order):
-          Changed the sd card image from Armbian_20.08.13_Helios4_buster_current_5.8.16.img to Armbian_20.11_Helios64_buster_current_5.9.10.img (yes, using Etcher), initially I was using the older image for what seemed to be stability reasons…
-          Before burning the image again - reformatted the card from exFAT to FAT in Windows 10 (as mentioned, not really much experience with Linux so this might have been the cause)
-          Moved the device from the left side of my desk to the right
 
It powered up and connected via usb - COM6 with my desktop as I was checking anyway every time before trying (for example desktop was always COM6, laptop always COM3).
 
Looks fine now, power light on, system light blinking, no hdd lights (as I don’t have any yet).
 
Even installed OMV which took about 20 mins, but I am able to access it.
 
Now off to buying disks, fun times ahead
Thanks for your time, people!

Hi again,
 
Yes, the lights were solid blue after boot (power and hdds, nothing else), so the comment about not getting a clean boot make sense.
 
I was monitoring the router but no ip was coming up for it, so this again makes sense as it wasn’t really booting with the sd card.
 
Here’s what actually worked last evening (don’t remember the exact order):
-          Changed the sd card image from Armbian_20.08.13_Helios4_buster_current_5.8.16.img to Armbian_20.11_Helios64_buster_current_5.9.10.img (yes, using Etcher), initially I was using the older image for what seemed to be stability reasons…
-          Before burning the image again - reformatted the card from exFAT to FAT in Windows 10 (as mentioned, not really much experience with Linux so this might have been the cause)
-          Moved the device from the left side of my desk to the right
 
It powered up and connected via usb - COM6 with my desktop as I was checking anyway every time before trying (for example desktop was always COM6, laptop always COM3).
 
Looks fine now, power light on, system light blinking, no hdd lights (as I don’t have any yet).
 
Even installed OMV which took about 20 mins, but I am able to access it.
 
Now off to buying disks, fun times ahead
Thanks for your time, people!

Hi folks,
 
I got my helios64, assembled it during the weekend and can’t seem to actually install it.
 
Here are some of the things I tried (I'm on windows 10 btw, I don’t have hdd drives yet, I assume this would not be an issue):
·         2 sd cards (one of which is a Samsung as recommended in the wiki), two computers (with correct com ports as visible in the device manager, driver is installed), tried both on usb2 and usb3
·         USB cable has been trimmed to fit the case properly - also tried with the back panel off and directly connected to the board
·         the devices starts up as soon as I plug in the power cord - I then use the power button to shut if off, then open the console and start it up (I did use the 4 seconds to shut it off and make sure the leds are not on)
·         (when I plug it in, the system light turns on red for just a millisecond, and then off, and all other light blue)
 
After start-up:
-          No light on the system led, not even blinking.
-          Power and hdd leds are all blue (constant on).
 
Anything I should be trying next? Thanks for reading.
 
PS. Not really much an expert on linux, last time I used it was years ago when I was tweaking my prior nas.