can't boot, problem possibly hard drive

Trisquel froze while compiling a program. Since I couldn't get the system to respond, I powered down. Upon attempting to boot, I get stuck with this message.


ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata1.00: ST_FIRST: DRQ=1weith device error, dev_stat 0x7F
ata1.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:08:00/00:00:00:00:00:/a0 tag 0 pio 16392 in
Get event status notification 4a 01 00 00 10 00 00 00 01 00res 74/74:74:74:74:74:/00:00:00:00:00:/74 Emask 0x3 (HSM violation)
ata1.00: status { DRDY DF }
ata1.00: revalidation failed (errno=-2)


I've found a couple of threads with similar error messages in the context of not being able to boot. They were inconclusive but suggested that the hard drive is to blame. Perhaps powering down without unmounting could have screwed something up. I am able to boot into a Trisquel live USB, and access my file system from a live session, which makes me suspect that whatever might be wrong is at the OS level, as opposed to the hardware level. I don't know much about hardware though. Since I can back up my files from a live session, reinstalling Trisquel is an option if there's a chance that will help.

Thanks.