how do i use the tool? sorry for asking stupid
Use it the same as you would on any other Linux system.
The man page is
here, courtesy of Google.
The normal sequence is to do something like this:
## Enable the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring in the drive firmware:
smartctl -s on /dev/hdc## Check current drive status. "-a" means "all", or "everything":
smartctl -a /dev/hdcThen scour the output looking for error reports.
(and post the complete output here for us to help with)If you don't see any errors, then do the "cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc"
thing again (sorry), and this time the drive will record errors
for later retrieval with
smartctl -aCheers