EDIT: Note, this stuff requires Hijack v426 or higher

I'm nowhere near an empeg today, but here you will find a compiled static binary for "smartctl", which can be downloaded and run (hopefully) on an Empeg/Rio Car unit.

It has a ton of confusing options, but basically you need to do the following to see if your hard drive is good or not:

#STEP-1:
./smartctl -s on /dev/hda
./smartctl -l error /dev/hda

#If the output looks good, next try this:

#STEP-2:
./smartctl -t short /dev/hda
# wait a few minutes
./smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda
./smartctl -l error /dev/hda

#Again, if the output looks good, then do the lloonngg test,
which will perform a full media scan for bad sectors.

#STEP-3:
./smartctl -t long /dev/hda
# wait a few hours
./smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda
./smartctl -l error /dev/hda

Cheers