It's always the first rule of tech support

First problem of installing new pdu (power distribution unit): find long enough 15A power cables. String two together. Not ideal, but what can you do?

Thread cables. Disconnect old pdu. Earth new pdu and connect it. Connect power cables from servers. Nothing.

Swear.

Disconnect new pdu. Earth old pdu and connect it. Connect power cables from servers. Everything happy again.

Fine.

Powercycle file server (which had yesterday lost connection to its keyboard, and domain admin accounts don't have permission on the box, and no remote control access to the box - ie, you have to be able to logon to the console with a local account to do anything to it). NT4 machine. It decides to run a checkdisk. At 8am when people really want to start using it.

Swear.

Wait the 20 minutes it takes to do the checkdisk. Machine comes back up. And hangs. Power cycle server. Machine comes back up. And hangs. Power cycle server. Half an hour later.

Test new pdu without anything important attached. Nothing. Connect pdu to different ups. Works. Reconnect pdu to first ups. Works.

Fine.

It's always the first rule of tech support (is it plugged in?)