Server probs hopefully solved
The server this site sits on underwent a complete migration to a new hard drive today, after weeks of intermittent down time including almost the entire weekend. I can't believe how smoothly it went actually. I followed these instructions, backed up all my web application directories, the main windows directory, and it rebooted into the new machine just fine. After about an hour of additional tinkering everything was the same as before.
I suppose after years of running Microsoft software I've been conditioned to expect failure and for things to take three times longer than you thought, but sometimes they surprise you and everything just works.