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So I'm fairly new to Ubuntu and linux systems in general. I started using them about 3 months ago. Recently everything was working fine, (I even figured out how to get WoW working perfectly all on my own) but then one day my pc crashed. Soon everything was slow to open until eventually the hard drive would no longer boot. I have the disc i used to install ubuntu so i pop that in. I use the gnome-disks to format the hard drive and make sure everything is okay (tests came back that the hard drive is in fine condition) however when I try to install ubuntu it comes up with "Input/output error during read on /dev/sda" I looked around and found it's either the hdd or the cd. With the hdd come back fine (and now that I notice, the cd seems to be running MUCH slower then before) I think it's the disk.

My problem, I'm lazy and don't want to buy another disc from the store (living in the middle of nowhere it's hard to get a blank cd without going out of my way) I was wondering since I have to run my pc via the live cd if i can over-write the current files and replace them with a new download from the site, thus I don't have to get a 2nd disc to put the iso file stuff onto that then reinstall?

Forgot to mention: The disc is large enough to have both sets of files (broken and unbroken one it) I'm not sure how it would be able to tell them apart though.....

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    Have you considered running from USB drive instead?
    – yossile
    Jan 28, 2015 at 5:17
  • No, I don't actually have any flash drives, I keep all my stuff in google drive or somewhere like that.
    – Noah H.
    Jan 28, 2015 at 5:39

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My apologies for writing this as an answer but a comment would not have ta same impact as it is my considered opinion that your hard disk is failing, so:

Back up your data first!

and then do the following:

(What? You're still here??? Go away and back up your data first!)

Boot your LiveCD, go to the software centre and install smartmontools, then go to a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and type:

smartctl --all /dev/sda

and copy the output of what you've got to http://paste.ubuntu.com and provide the link of that in your question and drop a comment below this answer!

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