Intel Xserve with Leopard Server 10.5.5 won't let me in via login

Question

A power outage appears to have created some issues with my intel Xserve, running Leopard server 10.5.5
The System identifier light was blinking, so I booted up from the Leopard disk and found out that my mirrored internal array needed to be rebuilt. No problem, 4 hours later, I repair permissions on the mirrored internal array, everything gets "repaired". Change bootup disk to the internal 10.5.5 mirrored array and reboot. System Identifier light stopped blinking, things were looking good.
The login screen comes up and when I put in the admin username and password, the screen does the shake of the wrong login.
What's weird is, on my laptop I can use Server Admin, Workgroup Manager, and the screen sharing for the server....with the admin username and password.
So, I figure, perhaps the mirror rebuild requires me to reset the admin password. So, boot back up from the Leopard Server install DVD, run the password utility. and reset the main account password.
I change the boot drive back to the internal mirror, same thing. I'm stuck. I can't get past the login screen on the actually server....or via the screen sharing...and Server Monitor appears to be stuck at 'waiting for response'. I can, again, use Server Admin and Workgroup Manager on my laptop and make changes to the X server software....but I can't log into the X serve.
My webpage, wiki, etc....are all serving fine. But, I'd like to be able to figure out what I'm doing wrong...log back in and run super duper, etc.
Help...please...

Answer 1

Spent all day with apple support. They said it sounded like the LADP database was corrupted. They had me try to login as root, via an opendir account, etc. No luck.
So, they suggested I do a fresh install of the Leopard server on an external drive. Did that. They then suggested I use my laptop and the workgroup manager app to log in to the xserver, export users, groups and computers....and to copy over the library/collaboration folder to the external "clean install" of Leopard server.
Did that and followed the instructions to "relink" the metadata.plist files in each group, to the GUID to the groups in workgroup manager. First issue, they weren't different GUID strings.
Well, that didn't work...kept getting file not found error. When trying to access the domain.com/groups/groupname...it should've asked for authentication. And let me into that wiki...but no, apache error page.
So, they had me create a new "test" group....added a user. Start and stopped the web...etc. This didn't create a new wiki entry (when we replaced my custom index.html to the default index where groups/wikis/blogs populate automatically at the main). And, there's no new "test" folder in the library/collaboration files.
They then said "well, it must be because you don't have reverse DNS configured right, that's why the new wikis won't set up". I've contacted dyndns.com...but I don't think that's the problem.
So, I've rebooted my xserver to the internal drive. The wiki and blog is still there, still accessible the way I like....I still can't login to the xserver.
So, I'm wondering, if anyone knows a way I can boot up my xserve in the target drive mode, hook up my laptop and replace / swap whatever admin files so that when I boot up my xserve, I can login again.
There has to be a way to hard fix a hidden file? Replace a DB? Some awesome terminal command to get me in and fix the admin account / password....
Or, does anyone know if the reverse DNS issue applecare cites is legit? Doesn't make sense how, the same public ip and domain name, that's worked for some time...suddenly doesn't???
I'm hoping someone can help me.