@black3dynamite as was I, kind of a tradition now.

Sadly latest version of Foxit free (10) got rid of their PDF printer, so Its win10 or Adobe now (haven't checked other PDF utilities)

Amateur Radio Field Day this week-end, as well as family only birthday party for my younger one and my nephew.

end of month meeting; our I-T department has been moved to reporting to the finance VP so its an introduction meeting

You could put nail polish over the pin on the power connector on the drive itself. Or a small piece of electrical tape

I am running SQL standard 2016 on server 2019 I do not know if its "supported" but it is working and so far no issues; granted very small DB may 400MB but its what the vendor wanted.

Kinda Sorta? I had a 2005 one die maybe 6,7 years ago and was able to attach the MDF to a 2008 server I had running in a lab environment to at least get a backup of the data. basic procedure is here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24399664/convert-attach-sql-server-2005-mdf-to-2008-mdf#:~:text=Best practice is to backup,older versions of SQL Server.

@scottalanmiller That's what I think is happening with us there's not much for our NOC to monitor anymore so they decided to "cut bait" while they have the chance and turn to different tech for monitoring.

Well so far not me but the basically gutted our level-1 NOC guys.

More layoffs at my company today; who knows I may be one of them ugh