[xec17]

Hi all,

From time to time my 80GB 5400 rpm hard drive (in a 15" 1.33GHz AlBook) will start to click very loudly and continues to do so for extended periods of time. I had thought originally that the problem was the amount of free space on the drive (I was down to about 4 gigs) but now with 33 gigs left the problem still occurs (although less frequently). I usually leave Adium, Safari, and iTunes open all the time and I rarely shut down or restart the laptop. The clicking also starts when I watch a video file in Quicktime or play a flash game or animation in Safari. When I quit all of my programs the clicking will stop after about 10 seconds. What is causing this problem? Thanks.

[Link]

This does NOT sound normal at all. I'd back up that stuff now and see what you can do about getting the HD replaced. It is indeed normal for 'clicking noise' -- as seeking noise, and on some older drives a regular "clunk" every now and then, but not loud clicking sounds, and not when the noise is associated with lots of activity or worse yet, a beachball cursor!

[brettcamp]

Back up everything immediately! That loud clicking is likely the sound of a hard drive about to fail. That's what it was when it happened to me. I just barely had time to transfer my stuff over to another HD before it died and Apple couldn't fix. They replaced it under AppleCare.

[bstone]

BACKUP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW!!!

Click sound+hard drive=failing hard drive