Thanks guys... Hardware problem, 1 in a 100000000000 chance. We won a lottery, so to speak... (technically speaking, 2 out of 4 hard-drives failed in a RAID-5 array of drives, which can handle up to 1 drive failure).
At one point it was even questionable if i had anything left at all due to subsequent daily and weekly backup corruption. I could have had to go back 1 month, but folks at a data recovery co restored everything from the damaged drives. So we're back up, with all major parts replaced on the failed server.
Keep fonting and your fingers crossed that we don't "win another lottery"
Alex,
We are happy to see you back on line. I hope all the problems just melted away.