[COLUG] Is the drive dead or not?

[Kent Broestl]

After a very hard reboot (my son _kicked_ the computer), one of my 
drives is now inaccessible. (Q: Head crash?)

mount /dev/hdf1 /storage
/dev/hdf1 already mounted or /storage busy

lsof | grep storage gives me not much (only files mounted under /usr... 
different drive)

ps aux doesn't tell me much either (only samba should hit the /storage 
and that process is stopped)

During the boot process, I am also warned that the drive is already 
mounted/busy.

I thought about fsck on the drive, but am warned that fsck on a mounted 
partition is bad.
Q: What am I missing?
Q: How bad is it to fsck a mounted drive?
Q: Is the drive just dead and should I just give up?

Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks!

Kent Broestl