[hamertime]

I just know I'm going to be horrified by all of the possibilities my problem could lead to...

My Macbook Pro is clicking. The clicking is very soft -- I can't hear it when music is playing -- and it's coming from the left speaker grill right next to the caps lock key. (Mind you, I use the term "coming from" loosely: it's not coming out of the speaker, it's coming from below). It happens about every 2 seconds and sometimes it doesn't happen at all, like right now while I'm typing. If the computer starts thinking hard, the clicking gets faster.

I'm going to take it in, don't you worry about that, but I don't have much time to drive the 45 minutes it takes to get to the nearest Apple store right now. I just wanted some speculation so I could be afraid. Because that's always fun.

I know the sound of a dying hard drive on a PC well; I've had two fail on me in my lifetime. But I don't really know where the hard drive is on a Macbook Pro. Is it the hard drive or could it be something else?

[Big Mac]

What makes you think it isn't the drive? And how loud is it?

[hamertime]

Nothing makes me think it isn't the drive; it's just that I knew where the drive was on my old PC laptops, and I'm not sure where it is on this computer.

It's very quiet. Like someone clipping their toenails ten feet away from you.

[sedlacek]

FWIW I'd put my money on that your HD is failing. I'm biased with this conclusion b/c the HD in my MBP died within 3 weeks of 1 year (so things were covered by warranty). Fortunately I had a very recent back up so all I really lost was time. So it might be a good idea to you BACK UP your HD (if you don't already do it on a regular basis).

Also, depending upon your (<=OS 10.4.x), you could use DiskWarrior to check on the general health of your HD.

HTH

-A

[NeXTLoop]

And for what its worth, the HD is located under the left palm rest. Basically everything immediately left of the trackpad, going toward the left edge of the computer, is where the HD is.

[JustinHorne]

"If the computer starts thinking hard, the clicking gets faster. "

Reading from the HD.

[hamertime]

Question: does Time Machine make a full backup or is it only for recovering files? I back up with Time Machine but I don't have an additional cloned backup.

[sedlacek]

as I understand TM, you should be able to start your machine from the OS X installation disk and then be given the option to restore from a TM backup. However, I have not done this, so you definitely want to read up on this or perhaps someone smarter than me can provided more detailed instructions.

-A

[hamertime]

Mac OS X 10.5 Help: Recovering your entire system

Hooray!

[Gish]

Definitely sounds like a hard drive failure.

f course, it could also theoretically be a broken fan...