Oh brother, I messed it up. Let me run it again.

tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
[sudo] password for tomgirl:
sudo: smartctl: command not found
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $

The $ came up on its own. sudo: smartctl: command not found Now what?

Here is the proble. Smart control not installed. Fixed

tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
[sudo] password for tomgirl:
sudo: smartctl: command not found
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ smartctl -t long /dev/sda
The program 'smartctl' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt install smartmontools
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ sudo apt install smartmontools
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
gsmartcontrol smart-notifier gpg
Recommended packages:
mailx | mailutils
The following NEW packages will be installed:
smartmontools
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 38 not upgraded.
Need to get 446 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,526 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main i386 smartmontools i386 6.4+svn4214-1ubuntu0.1 [446 kB]
Fetched 446 kB in 1s (372 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package smartmontools.
(Reading database ... 237861 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../smartmontools_6.4+svn4214-1ubuntu0.1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking smartmontools (6.4+svn4214-1ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19.1) ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu21) ...
Setting up smartmontools (6.4+svn4214-1ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19.1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu21) ...
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ ^C

If the drive is 10 years old and you have the spare cash just buy a new one...

Yes, the $ is part of the terminal command line prompt and comes up automatically.

The -t will initiate a test immediately, I would just do a short test which should only take 10 minutes or so. To see the results type in the command

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

Did you not let apt finish installing and configuring smartmontools?

It's running now. 111 minutes wait.
Tommi

None of those commands are succeeding because smartctl is not in your path.

That is telling you that the command 'smartctl' was not found.

I am not a Mint user and not much familiar with their use of sudo so I will have to guess, and my guess is that you will need to supply the full path to the smartctl command as it may not be in the path for normal users.

First I would try this just to make sure it is on your system (it should be):

On my system this tells me that the path to smartctl is /usr/sbin/smartctl, yours may be different but it will probably be either /usr/sbin/smartctl or /sbin/smartctl.

Next, let's change the smartctl command you are using to somethng which should not take more than a couple of seconds to execute just so we can make sure you are running smartctl without having to wait for it. Assuming your path from above is /usr/sbin/smartctl, try this (substitute your actual path):

That should produce some recognizable output about your hard drive and it will tell us that you have indeed executed a smartctl command. It will either succeed or fail immediately so you will not be in question as to whether it is complete.

Try that and we will move on to a more useful command... and be patient, you will learn your way around!

EDIT:
Oops! I did not read your second post above about installing smartmontools...

But assuming you got it installed, 111 minutes is too long for most smartctl commands, so lets be clear - what command is still running, exactly?

... should complete almost immediately.

Here it is:

tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ whereis smartctl
smartctl: /usr/sbin/smartctl /usr/share/man/man8/smartctl.8.gz
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ OrpHan#*hOmE
OrpHan#*hOmE: command not found
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ whereis smartctl smartctl: /usr/sbin/smartctl /usr/man/man8/smartctl.8.gz
smartctl: /usr/sbin/smartctl /usr/share/man/man8/smartctl.8.gz
smartctl::
smartctl: /usr/sbin/smartctl /usr/share/man/man8/smartctl.8.gz
smartctl.8: /usr/share/man/man8/smartctl.8.gz
tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $ sudo /usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/sda
[sudo] password for tomgirl:
smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [i686-linux-4.10.0-38-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and 7200.7 Plus
Device Model: ST3200822AS
Serial Number: 4LJ1RPSH
Firmware Version: 3.02
User Capacity: 200,049,647,616 bytes [200 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13/1410D revision 2
Local Time is: Tue Jan 25 20:59:38 2022 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

OK, so adding the path did work apparently! I'll re-edit my post above so that everyone can follow what we just did.

But the point to clearly see here is that you have provided the full path to the smartctl command in your sudo command. So any future smartctl commands we try should begin with this: sudo /usr/sbin/smartctl ...

So that get's us over the first hurdle. Now, the data you posted looks valid as far as it goes. What should follow will be different for different drives but it should complete almost immediately and return you to a shell prompt tomgirl@tomgirl-OptiPlex-790 ~ $. Are you saying that it has not returned to that prompt?

It did return to the prompt, but I didn't print that.

Maybe the test has not finished or the OP just has not posted the data yet. Hope it is just the later... I guessed wrong...

I hate to say this, but I need to get in and care for the girls, bedtime for them. Can we pick this up tomorrow?

Tommi

is now needed so we can see the crucial portions of a complete report.

Please remember when pasting command output here that you enclose what you paste within code tags, [ # ] icon above the input window.

Okay

OK, excellent, that was what was expected!

So you should now be able to run the command and provide the pastebin data requested by mrmazda.

I woud suggest a short test but rather than confuse things with additional commands, I'll step aside and let you all resume where you left off.

BTW, when you think something has been running too long or are unsure whether it has completed, please paste the exact command here so that we can make a guess whether that is to be expected or not.

MrMazda,

Can we pick up on this tomorrow? I've got to take care of my girls, bedtime. I saw a bug listed on the report. Should I scrap the HDD? Or is it more profound?

Thank you so much for your patience and assistance. You guys are the best.

Tommi