Computer freezes/harddrive issue

[mahesh]

My Gazelle running Ubuntu 16.04 is frequently freezing. I have hard-booted and open up a CLI session, I receive a blk_update_request: i/o error, dev sda message. Badblocks returns nothing. I was in a fender bender a few days ago--could my computer been jarred in the accident to cause this error? I.e. do i have a loose cable?
Thanks, Ben