Earlier today, the HD in my PowerBook G4 was making some pretty loud clicking noises. I shut down the computer and turned it back on, and the noises stopped. I ran TechTool (a hardware diagnostic utility for Macs) and the HD passed all tests, even a surface scan, and its still quiet. It seems that the reboot fixed it, but how? Could the OS have been trying to access the drive in some weird way that caused it to make the noise and the reboot fixed that? Or do you think my hard drive is on its way out? Everything's under warranty, so I'm not too terribly worried, I just don't want to waste my time driving to the Apple Store in St. Louis only to not have them fix anything because the drive isn't making the clicking noise for them.

On a side note, does anyone know how many repairs an Apple product must go through before they replace it? I've had my keyboard, motherboard, and LCD inverter board replaced, and I'd love a free upgrade to a Macbook Pro. Maybe there's a way to expedite my hard drive's death.

the clicking noise is called the click of death for a reasion

when a hard drive starts makeing the click of death it is very important to have all the data on the drive backedup as it is likely to fail and when the drive fails you will know it.
I have been throu two 80g hd failures it is not pritty.
the drive may fail tomorow or 2 months from now.

best luck and rember always backup your data.

Thanks.

I'm not all that concerned about backups though; all my important crap is on my desktop or USB hard drive. It just seems odd that the problem quit after a reboot, but who knows. If the thing can last 3 weeks until winter break when I'll be home at St. Louis and 10 minutes from an Apple Store, I'll be happy.

Were you perchance juggling your laptop when said noise occurred?


But it is a Mac, so I would advise tossing it out of the window of a moving car and getting a real computer [preferably one that runs Linux].

Nope, my laptop was sitting on a table.

Nothing wrong with a Mac, OSX is awesome. And I had Ubuntu installed on it, but I eventually got rid of it because the wireless card drivers for the Broadcom chipset only supports WEP, and considering UMR and my house use WPA, and 9 times out of 10, I'm nowhere near an ethernet jack, I removed Ubuntu. Besides, OSX is UNIX with a pretty GUI.

I have used OSX for a time, it wasn't bad, but Beryl/Compiz/Xgl/Aiglx kicks its collective ass.

OS X is more than a window server.

I have also heard that it could be related to a bad or going bad PSU.