Anyone know if there is a way to "revive" a GE power groove 215 watt that the ends light up preheat and flickers dimly when touched? Or why it went from fully functional to this state? Hope so it's my only pg17....

What you mean by "preheat" ? Is it running on Preheat gear and keeps firing the starter ? As the rest of your description seems right for a lamp on Rapid Start gear that is getting Mercury starved, not Preheat..

Was the lamp in long time storage before this happened ? Or long time in use ?

If the gear is Rapid Start : Is there correct electrode heating supply ? Stick only 1 end of the tube in the socket at a time, and see if the filament is heating

Is the ballast intact ? If you have other compatible lamp, test the ballast with that. If you have a clamp ampermeter, place it around both wires going to 1 end, and see if the current is right for this type of lamp (i think 1500mA ?)

The filaments light up nice at both ends but lamp won't start. Has only been lite up a couple times and not for very long has been in storage for about a year since then.. Ballast tested great and lights up 2 Vho lamps perfectly. Will this thing ever light up again?

Try an instant start electronic ballast, preferably F96/HO if you can get your hands on one, let it run for maybe an hour, and see if it works after that. These have a habit of developing air leaks, though, so it may be toast.

maybe ill try to hook up my fulham wh8 to it and hope for the best...

Update: power groove lamp only flickers when hooked up in a certain posision...? I dont get it

Maybe the cathode is broken and only makes contact when the lamp is in a certain position. I've actually revived EOL incandescent lamps (some more than once) by tapping the lamp with the power on so the filament makes contact again and welds together.

The cathodes heat up no matter what posision but the lamp only flickers on one socket posision... Realy confusing!?!?!?!?

I'm at a loss then.

Those HO instant start hsve about 1100 volt OCV
So workhotse 8 is not the ballast for it. Also u need 1500 MA. If you are preheating it this will only work in
240 volt realm and u need a cap in series to boost up the OCV. That only way it will work on preheat.

I hooked it to an advance.HO electronic ballast from 1990s and half the bulb lights but not fully more so than its proper 1500 ma universal from 1976 ballast will do! Thinking it's merc starved 

Sounds like it may have a slow air leak. It's a pretty common problem with these.

I hooked it to an advance.HO electronic ballast from 1990s and half the bulb lights

With it on the HO electronic ballast, run your hand along it...the 'light' should follow you, if you can get it to "connect" (which might require both hands & trying to drag the light together), it should fire right up!
If the HO ballast won't do it, use the WorkHorse instead as it should deff work! (but also put something on one of its other outputs)

If you can get it to fire, let it run til its warm & move to the VHO ballast, should then fire up with no problem... then let it run for atleast a few hours or even all day.

I have had a bunch of f48s pgs die  on me due to slow vacuum loss but not any f96 (knock on wood) but I haven't tried them all yet either I got 40 altogether  but that sounds like vacuum loss to me . Sorry for the loss