Interpreting SMART data results for /dev/sda

[vepxistqaosani]

Hi!

I'm new to Linux Mint. I'm running v14 on a 64-bit Sony Vaio laptop with an Intell Core 2 Duo.

I recently failed to build sage (a rather large install), ending with an I/O error. I installed smartmontools and ran the self-test -- which gives the result SELF-TEST FAILED even though all the attributes show assessments of "OK".

Is there another utility I should have installed? Is there some easy way to find out what failed that I'm just missing?

Thanks!