my hard disk on my server crashed last week
on the advice of fellow student aptly named lucky13 - i froze the hard disk for 1/2 hour and was able to boot it again and backup data....it really wouldn't boot until i froze it in a ziplock bag. so the internet rumours are true - apparently it works about 50% of the time....
i found an old disk that wasn't needed - installed everything - but then realized it was SO noisey i couldn't take it. so i removed it....finally found another that wasn't needed and just finished reinstalling redhat + all appropriate directories....hopefully this disk lasts longer....