Thanks for letting me know, Eric!
It seems to me everything is good. (But what do I know!) Here is the
results:

hdparm /dev/sda1

  multcount    = 16 (on)
  IO_support  =   1 (32-bit)
  readonly      =   0 (off)
  reahead       = 256 (on)
  geometry     = 4863/255/63, sectors =  55285760, start = 2048

hdparm /dev/sda2

  multcount    = 16 (on)
  IO_support  =   1 (32-bit)
  readonly      =   0 (off)
  reahead       = 256 (on)
  geometry     = 4863/255/63, sectors =  2, start = 75769854

hdparm /dev/sda3

  multcount   = 16 (on)
  IO_support =   1 (32-bit)
  readonly     =   0 (off)
  reahead      = 256 (on)
  geometry    = 4863/255/63, sectors =  20480000, start = 55287808

hdparm /dev/sda

  multcount   = 16 (on)
  IO_support =   1 (32-bit)
  readonly     =   0 (off)
  reahead     = 256 (on)
  geometry   = 4863/255/63, sectors =  78125000, start = 0



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:07 AM, Technomage Hawke <
technomage.hawke@gmail.com> wrote:

> now I remember what the other tool was: hdparm. that tool will tell you
> what the SMART status is on the HDD.
>
> -eric
>
> On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:42 AM, Stu wrote:
>
> > Just a suggestion, have you thought about giving UBCD a try? There's a
> bunch of software tools on it, most of which are way beyond me, but I have
> managed to salvage a couple of hard drives with it in the past.
> >
> > http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
> >
> >
> > On 02/17/2012 04:27 PM, Technomage Hawke wrote:
> >> you can load a live DVD into the system and then try one of the many
> HDD test tools (badblocks with no options is a safe bet and will tell you
> almost immediately if there are any problems). I know there is another
> command line tool that can test drive throughput and read the SMART tables
> on the controller. I can't remember its name off hand, but it is a good one
> to test the drive electronics.
> >>
> >> -eric
> >>
> >> On Feb 17, 2012, at 10:05 AM, Michael Havens wrote:
> >>
> >>> Yep.... I think I had a hard disk failure. I restarted my computer and
> was presented with:
> >>>
> >>>      error: unknown filesystem.
> >>>      grub rescue>
> >>>
> >>> I then typed 'ls' and the response was
> >>>
> >>>      (hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos1) (fd0)
> >>>
> >>> which is two partitions, the swap drive, and the floppy disk
> >>> how do I verify my suspicion of drive failure?
> >>> funny how all this happened just as I was attempting to back it up.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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-- 
:-)~MIKE~(-: