At your service
I have a Toshiba Satellite that warns me maybe once every 2 months that it may have a problem in the next 12 months. It has 43 Linux Distros on it currently, so I want to keep on top of its health (and have new Dells coming in Friday, lol).
BADBLOCKS
... is likely already installed, if you type it in Search (not filters) in Synaptic Package Manager, you will see it is incorporated under a package "e2fsprogs", which says in part
Should I do this before or after reinstall? Sounds like you and my son had a lot in common computer wise lol....