Smith's Law says this:

Murphy was optimistic

You bet! This morning, my "micro" server light was solid blue, server whose disk I had just replaced ; the console (still connected) was not responding. Reboot hard, freeze after 5 minutes (with a weird click when it happen). Disassemble, clean up the fans, check, as I suspected overheating, let cool down. Retry. Blast! Still the same, but with an even shorter uptime. I still hope it is not the hard drive that is DOA.

The problem is now, what to run the server on. I have a spare PIII that works well, but I want the hard drive as is. Problem it is a 2.5" IDE, I need the adapter. Problem, I need a car. The closest electronic store is La Source by Circuit City née Radio Shack[1], but they haven't had anything I need or want to buy in forever. Ah yes, because my car has been towed at the shop and I don't have a loaner yet, I can't get the needed adapter.

Update later, I can get a car, the dealership still has to work on mine, send the courtesy shuttle over, drive me there and provide me with a car. In the end I have the adapter, the "new server" is now more silent. It was not without pain. Old BIOS that can't boot on just any drive, grub that fail on said machine (know issue, I still know LILO, so no biggie), and udev mysteries that I solved by forcing to regenerate the "binding" to eth0 by MAC address.

Notes

[1] Hint: they just filed for bankruptcy in both the US and Canada