Every time I boot into Fedora Core 4, my root account receives e-mail messages like the following:
From: root <root@localhost.localdomain>
To: root@localhost.localdomain
Subject: SMART error (CurrentPendingSector) detected on host: MyHost

This email was generated by the smartd daemon running on:

host name: MyHost
DNS domain: localdomain
NIS domain: (none)

The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon:

Device: /dev/hda, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

For details see host's SYSLOG (default: /var/log/messages).

You can also use the smartctl utility for further investigation.
No additional email messages about this problem will be sent.

I grepped the message file for message logged by smartd, and these are the resutls I got:
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: smartd version 5.33 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: Opened configuration file /etc/smartd.conf
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: Configuration file /etc/smartd.conf parsed.
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: Device: /dev/hda, opened
Apr 9 13:25:59 localhost smartd[2288]: Device: /dev/hda, found in smartd database.
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Device: /dev/hda, is SMART capable. Adding to "monitor" list.
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Monitoring 1 ATA and 0 SCSI devices
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Device: /dev/hda, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Sending warning via mail to root@localhost.localdomain ...
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Warning via mail to root@localhost.localdomain: successful
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Device: /dev/hda, 2 Offline uncorrectable sectors
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Sending warning via mail to root@localhost.localdomain ...
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2288]: Warning via mail to root@localhost.localdomain: successful
Apr 9 13:26:00 localhost smartd[2296]: smartd has fork()ed into background mode. New PID=2296.

It seems that Linux thinks I have some kind of problem with my hard drive. The system is set up to dual boot between Linux and Window XP. This means the hard drive has an NTFS partition on it. I'm wondering if the smartd daemon gets confused when looking at this partition and thinks something is wrong.

I'm not familiar with smartctl command suggested in the log output. I conculted the man page for smartctl and was overwhealmed by the options, and I'm not sure how I would want to use it.

What should I do to look into this potential hard drive problem?

The best tool is always provided by the hard drive manufacturer. All the majors have diagnostic utilities you can download on their websites. These are generally in the form of a bootable floppy or bootable cd iso and are easy to use for the most part. Download the utility from your manufacturer, burn the cd, reboot and run the thorough version of the diagnostic. If the tests show problems with the drive, check to see if you are in the warranty period, usually 3 to 5 years from date of manufacturer. If so, contact the manufacturer for a warranty replacement and inform them that you ran their diagnostics and the results.
Also, back up your data now; getting an increasing number of bad sectors on a hard drive is generally a sign that the drive is about to go.

I'm not sure what kind of hard drive I have in my system. I was hoping that Windows would tell me when I was looking at the hardware configuration. It just lists the drive as a standard drive. How can I tell what kind of hard drive I have with out having to physically open up the system, and possibly remove the drive to find out where I need to get diagnostic tools for it?

Do "cat /proc/ide/hda/model" to find out the make and model.

Also, as far as smartctl goes, try "smartctl -l error /dev/hda" to see the error log for the disk. (You'll need to be root to do this.)