[12:23] <TheAmericanHero> Hello. I was given an old maching (10+ years) and I've installed ubuntu server on it.  Problem is, I think the drive may be bad (or has bad sectors).
[12:24] <TheAmericanHero> I can't get to the prompt right now, is there an alternative to running a check on the hdd?
[12:38] <tsimpson> boot to a live-cd and check the disk, checking the disk is the only way to see if it's good or not
[12:39] <tsimpson> unless you happen to have a spare working HDD lying around, which you can swap and see if it works
[12:40] <TheAmericanHero> Unfortunately I do not have a spare.  I have a live-cd but I couldn't find documentation to check the disk.  Do you know?
[12:40] <tsimpson> !fsck
[12:41] <tsimpson> it's basically (as root): fsck <partition>
[12:41] <tsimpson> where <partition> would be something like /dev/sda1
[12:41] <TheAmericanHero> Where do I type this?  With the previous installation I couldn't reach the prompt.  With the live cd I couldn't get to terminal either.
[12:42] <tsimpson> which live cd are you using? all of them should have a terminal emulator
[12:43] <tsimpson> or even if they don't, you should be able to get to TTY1-6 with Ctrl-Alt-F1-6
[12:43] <TheAmericanHero> 12.04.2 desktop i386
[12:47] <tsimpson> it definitely comes with a terminal emulator
[12:48] <TheAmericanHero> Ok.  I'm loading the live cd now.  It will take a few moments.
[12:49] <tsimpson> Ctrl-Alt-T should be the default shortcut to open the terminal emulator
[12:49] <tsimpson> with dash
[12:49] <TheAmericanHero> ok
[13:09] <TheAmericanHero> I was able to pull up terminal with Ctrl-Alt-T.  Thank you.  I will try to fsck command now...
[13:24] <TheAmericanHero> I tried a few fsck commands (using different attributes from the man page) but it didn't pan out.  The fsck -A just brought me to the prompt immediately.  At the moment I'm running badblocks.
[13:28] <TheAmericanHero> I can tell it's gonna take an extremely long time to finish so I'll just let it run and figure things out from there.  Thanks for your help.
[13:35] <doug_> test
[13:35] <doug_> hello?
[13:35] <TheAmericanHero> .
[13:36] <doug_> can any one help me with a bluetooth pearing problem?
[13:38] <doug_> nothing heared, byyyyyyyyyyyyyy