Re: [Grml] How to use GRML to check whether a hard disk is failing

Michael Whapples mwhapples@aim.com wrote:

Thanks to everyone who replied. It actually turned out not to be the hard disk failing, I had misunderstood what was meant by the person when I spoke to them on the phone.

For the benefit of the archives (someone will probably discover this thread in a Web search while looking for solutions to hard disk failures) smartctl -a /dev/sda (replacing /dev/sda with the correct device) will tell you whether the SMART monitoring firmware in the drive has detected hardware/media errors.

As to your other question, computer literacy is always to be preferred. Knowledge is better than ignorance, and Linux is a great environment in which to learn.