Mark, thanks for your diagnostics!

Quote:
on the 44-pin IDE header.

The bad hard drive gave me these same "hda: lost interrupt" messages in the bad empeg and in a known good empeg. Using a known good IDE CABLE, the "bad" drive worked in the good empeg. Maybe I need to retighten the cable headers a bit, or maybe it's frayed from running at a 90 degree angle so often.

Now, to try the bad drive with good cable in bad empeg.
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FireFox31
110gig MKIIa (30+80), Eutronix lights, 32 meg stacked RAM, Filener orange gel lens, Greenlights Lit Buttons green set