Absolute Nightmare Scenario

My PC unexpectedly died. It requires a new HD and clean Windows install...which was its own special nightmare due to Windows relationship with NVMe pre-load..

plex server...

it's up now...but it shows two of the same server. one connects and the other doesn't.

I went through the device list and eliminated the one that should have been the new one...it didn't work. I only have the new one now. I've started reattaching the media to the server, and noticed that my family has all lost their connection to the shared servers....from my end in the list of friends I'd have to re grant them all access.

next issue is I cannot get remote access to work but I'm sure that's a me issue....

here's the most frustrating part so far...I now only see one server, the new one clearly....but if I go on my phone, on my local network it says I don't have access to any servers.

however...if I search for a piece of media that I know I haven't added to the new server yet....not only does it come up, it plays fine....!

I know it's coming from my files and no where else as the media is unique.

this leads me to believe the "old" version of the server exists somewhere and has my full friends list and I can rebuild from there...

but where the heck is it?

any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

for whatever it's worth I've moved my server from PCs in the past with little to no issue beyond losing play histories so I haven't a clue what's happening here.