Stalin update : The reinstall last night worked. Sort of. I allowed the installer to partition as it chose, then modified it.
sda1 : /boot 47mb
sda2 : / 8001mb
sda3 : swap 628mb
sdb1 : /var 996mb
sdb2 : /home 1153mb

The install took almost 2.5 hrs - and although it claimed it would only be 3543mb, it actually occupied over 4400mb. Surprise!

Booting went well, so did logging in, then the Gnome desktop hung, and breaking out to the text screen showed repeated scsi errors, lovely ones like 'directory contains a hole' and 'I/O error' and the like. I love technology. I reset with extreme prejudice, rebooted to failsafe, then shutdown with the -Fr parm to force a FSCK disk check on reboot. After THAT, I looked around in text mode - things look OK. I'll try gnome again tonight.

I'm at the point of formatting the drives and putting the whole thing back in the storage closet if it doesn't work tonight. I just ordered a new Dell server with 1200 celeron, 128mb ram, and TWO 80gb drives for about $336 after rebate. This is for a NEW dell server. Sale ends the 25th. :)