Words mean things.....
You refer to 'archives', but then speak of doing a 'search'. You're searching a particular board?
'Archives' is what the board used to be called that is the, '.... link at the bottom of the dirtrider.net main forum page....'. Now it's called 'Technical Posts' subtitled: A destination for threads that have run their course, but are saved for posterity.
The mention of 'there is not diddley.Zilch-notta' indicates you did not see the 'no posts in the past 30 days' line. Change that delimiter to 'from the beginning' and you will see the technical posts that indeed are there....all 33 of them to this time.
So, those 'archives' are still there, but the 'before the crash' threads on this board (and I presume the others) are searchable only within the limits mentioned above.