I booted the server back up again and somehow remembered the root password. I mounted the partitions manually and they worked fine. I looked at the dmesg file and found the errors then looked it up in google. They all said it was hopeless and the hdd is on it’s way out. I found out it was my 200Gb HDD which I had put all the important stuff on 
I kept reading through and someone on another forum said it could be related to heat issues. If the HDD gets hot it could cause those errors.. also if the cable is a bit dodgy.
I changed the HDD cable and also opened the case somewhat and took the front faceplate off to (hopefully) allow more air to circulate. It’s in one of those really tiny micro cases which has half-height cards in it since it’s so small. Hence not a lot of air circulates.
The server is back up and running now, so lets hope it keeps that way.
I’m tempted to buy a new PC and put the HDD’s in there and install the latest Mandrivalinux 2005 LE and put the PCTV card and DVDROM in that PC and just have the one PC for server and TV. No reason to have two separate PCs really. It’s just using up extra electricity.
I’ve been looking at prices on Gamedude.com.au and it seems that to purchase the parts in either 32bit or 64bit would be approximately the same give or take $50. I may yet get an AMD 64bit CPU and Foxconn or Asus 64bit motherboard then run the 64bit Mandrivalinux on it. That’d be hardcore and fast!! I thought the price difference would be staggering. If I ran Windows there’d be no point in getting the 64bit versions as 64bit Windows is crud from the reviews I’ve seen. It actually runs slower than the 32bit at the same GHz. For around $300 I could have a new fast PC for watching TV, DVDs and XviD movies. Hooray! 
