cabbitzilla

... that warrants this kind of karmic debt.

The primary drive in Hutch -is- dead. This has been verified.
The case that Hutch is in is also a casualty. The power switch literally fell out of it, and I cracked the plastic facing horribly trying (in vain) to get it back together.
The motherboard in Hutch is dying.

And that's apparently part of the problem. I have EIGHT hard drives here now and none of them will recognize on the primary IDE bus. Most will on the secondary, but only after a lengthy pause in the POST, and none of them will boot. The old primary just grinds. One of the remaining seven has a bad stepper tick to it. The other six? They just power off at the end of the POST and the machine tries to net boot. I grabbed the most promising of the six and put it in the machine that I'd gotten from

nightambre and her hubby... and discovered that the ~~power supply in it as toast.~~ *(^#&^! power switch on the case is fscked.

*pounds head on desk*

The PSU from Hutch has been removed and will go into Cave, the gifted machine's new moniker. Provided it'll boot with any of the six, it'll become the core of the new machine. I'm half expecting the to find that the connectors don't match. Or that the old power supply is somehow welded into the case. Or that a band of rampaging aborigine pygmies will burst through the door and steal it all.

I'm having one of those months.

EDIT: I've amended the post above as needed and will explain. The damage to the front face of Hutch is because the power switch is broken. With this latest revalation, I now have -2- cases with borked power switches. So now we get down and get funky and try to somehow splice together a switch.

Can I get off this ride now?