Hard drive - dead or dying?

[David Sumbler <david@aeolia.co.uk>]

My computer (Ubuntu Feisty) would not boot correctly a few days
ago: it seemed to get into a loop with the following printed about
every 7 seconds (all laboriously copied in longhand, since it wasn't
logged!):

ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
ata1.01: (BMDMA stat 0x65)
ata1.01: cmd c8/00:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 tag0 cdb 0x0 data 4096
in
         res 51/01:08:80:b4:a8/00:00:00:00:00/f4 Emark 0x1 (device
error)
ata1.01: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 78165360, hpa_sectors : 78165360
ata1.00: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 160086528, hpa_sectors : 160086528
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata1.01: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 78165360, hpa_sectors : 78165360
ata1.01: configured for PIO3
ata1.01: EH complete

Periodically there would be other messages.

Most of this means nothing to me, but after several attempts I concluded
that ata1.00 probably refers to /dev/sda, and ata1.01 to /dev/sdb, and
that there was a fault with the second.

I disconnected the drive, and the computer booted OK.  I have now
commented out references to the partitions on /dev/sdb in /etc/fstab.

The drive in question was giving minor problems a couple of years ago,
and on advice I bought a new one, but kept the old one for backups
etc.  Until now, it seems to have behaved pretty well.

Can someone tell me this: has the drive now as-good-as died, or is there
any hope of resurrection?

David

-- 
David Sumbler <david@aeolia.co.uk>