T42p Ticking noise??? very annoying

[luv2show]

Hi everyone,
I just got my T42p a couple of weeks ago...it's been running like a dream! Never had one like it...now, just yesterday it started making this annoying ticking noise from around the hard drive area. It kinda clicks and ticks all the time now. Mostly when you're actually doing something, like browsing the internet, changing programs, or something like that. I don't know how exactly to describe it, but it is just making this annoying noise a lot now that it didn't used to make! I notice it especially when the cylinder icon with the arrow through it is blinking on the status bar ( i think it's the hard drive one, but can't remember, it's my first thinkpad!) It's the fourth one from the right. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[AlexanderT]

I think that is normal. My harddrive (Hitachi 60GB, 7200RPM) does that too. And I remember my old Toshiba Satellite did it too.

[mdarnton]

Is that an occasional tap, or does it sound like a little man inside is beating out an irregular rhythm on plastic? Mine made that sound after a few weeks, and the person I got at IBM support immediately said "hang up and back yourself up NOW!" Three days later there was a new harddrive in my computer, and no tapping.

[johnson5001]

I have that ticking sound too in my T41. From what I read in other places, this is a typical problem. My T30 has this kind of noice too and it been running fine for the past two years and still running.

[rgrosz]

The ticking sound is normal drive operation - some drives are noisy, mine is quiet.

When you hear a sound like a rubber band hitting a tin can, then you know the hard drive is starting to fail. That is the sound of a forceful drive head reset, as it attempts to read the drive.

This happened to me a year ago, and the drive failed within a week. The system became noticeably slower due to the large number of hard drive retries.

I did get to back everything up fully, and didn't lose any data.