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I'm using Lubuntu 14.04 on my older desktop. Sometimes when booting up, I get a message that "/" or "/tmp" could not be mounted, or else a disk error was detected and a disk check will start executing. Suspect that my old hard drive is beginning to fail. Is there a diagnostic that will indicate if it is the hard drive or the controller that is beginning to fail?

user267265
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  • What part of the "/" or "/tmp" or "disk error" do you think a diagnostic didn't just happen? Buy another hardrive and reload – xtrchessreal Feb 09 '16 at 00:15
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    take a look here http://askubuntu.com/questions/561865/what-is-the-best-way-to-scan-a-hard-drive-check-health-in-ubuntu – JoKeR Feb 09 '16 at 00:38
  • Answer is probably not but if there were one would you just replace the bad platter? Or just the controller? Interesting question but suffers from XY problem, you need a new drive :) – JimLohse Feb 09 '16 at 03:19

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If you suspect that your hard drive might be dying, I suggest running some kind of diagnostic software - but only after backing up all of your data! Sometimes this is built into the computer, and can be run by either navigating to the Diagnostic tab in BIOS,

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or there will be a key designated for this purpose, which you will have to press at startup.

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For a more in-depth diagnosis, I personally recommend downloading the Ultimate Boot CD, which includes ViVARD - a low-level HDD diagnostic software, which runs on top of DOS. This is a bootable image which you will have to burn to a CD, or write to a USB flash drive.

ddybing
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