Is there a way to perform a sort of "hard reset" on a remote system (running linux)? The issue i'm facing is related to one of the hard drives dying during I/O and becoming inaccessible - after reboot, the hdd simply disappears from the device list. Only when power is completely cut - it will come back alive, that is when the system is shut down and booted normally (via the according power button). This is on a server, so I always have to trip down to the server room to get it resurrected. The end result is to get all data off the drive (which, so far, i am failing to do due to the described problem).
What I want to do is somehow fully cut the power and make the system boot instantly or after a small delay. I have witnessed such functionality while performing some BIOS upgrades. It's like a bootstrap code.. first the OS is shut down (power is cut) and then after like 5 seconds the system starts booting. All input on the whole topic is very welcome (some smalltime/lowcost network ON/OFF switches, WOL, etc).