In other distributions (names redacted to protect the guilty) the S.M.A.R.T tools are included in so-called recovery images. Most of the tools useful to deal with hard disk problems are already in the TryUbuntu image. Missing are the S.M.A.R.T tools "smartctl" and "gsmartcontrol".
During a troubleshooting session, I was able to copy smartctl(8) to a thumb drive formatted for EXT4, and was able to execute it to find my problem. I know this is not everyone's cup of tea, and most of the time one doesn't need it...until one does. Particularly if one can't boot one's system.
Partition management and mkfs are there; adding smartctl(8) would be a help. gsmartcontrol(8) is the GUI front end for smartctl(8).
