I just did this last night trouble-shooting my erratic running problem.

I connected a guage (at least 50 psi capability) between the fuel regulator and the fuel rail fittings. Pull the fuel pump relay and jummper across the number 2 and 3 terminals and you can hear the pump run. You could also just start the engine but if your problem is that it won't run this method works. You should see between 38 and 45 psi and the pressure should remain after the pump is off for several minutes (this is a good leak test). If the pump doesn't run you'll need to go to the terminals for the connector on top of the tank and apply 12 VDC directly to the pins and listen for the pump to run.

I can tell you from the experience of having a pump fail that they go from working great to not at all in a few milli-seconds. When I pulled mine it would run up fine on the bench but just wouldn't develop adequate pressure for the injectors. Anyway, you wouldn't want to put a 15 year old (in my case) pump back in after all that work anyway :-)

Randy