On the weekend I decided to remove the WinServer 2003 from the equation (acting as a file server on a 400Mhz P3), and move the drives to the SuSE server, as well as use a bigger case to hold everything.
So I move all the bits to the other bigger case, add the DMA100/133 IDE controller with the two 250Gig drives, and boot it up. All works well, expect that I keep noticing that after a few reboots, I get a lot of file system rebuilds on the root partition. After a few more reboots, the Reiserfs has taken enough of a beating that it stops half way through tie startup phase.
So I do a repair off the SuSE setup disks, and try again (hoping that it was just a software problem). Nope. Still does it.
The I thought it was the IDE controller (which was the only things that got added to the system), so I take it out. Still does it.
Then I figure that it might be a corrupt HD, so I install the OS on another drive. Nope. It wasn’t the drive.

Last night I re-install the OS (again) and the problem persists, but notice something else. When the system is shutting down I get an error saying that the root partition (/) was busy when it came time to unmount it, but the system rebooted anyway. That must be why the fs kept getting corrupted. Before doing too many reboots (and totally destroy the OS) I pull out all the cards (except the video card) and the problem went away. The root partition unmounts properly. I ass the sound card, and reboot several times. All is still well. And I add all the other cards (except for an older Hauppauge WinTV tunner card) and the system unmounts the root partition just fine.

Very strange. But now all the settings I had modified up to last week, are lost. Kinda makes me wish I had made a copy of the /etc folder. And whatever other folders config files are kept. I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time I re-install everything.