Grotesque Crunching Noises from HDD

[thequicksilver]

I've just had two small spells of grotesque crunching noises from my iBook's Hard Drive. Crunching maybe isn't the right word actually - more like clunking.

The computer wasn't able to be active at the point (beachball), and it sounded as if the drive was spinning, but it simply wasn't able to read it. The first time lasted about ten seconds, the second lasted a minute.

I do have a recent backup (last night), and I'm pretty certain that this is the first sign of a hard drive approaching death. Short of calling Apple (thank God I bought Apple Care), is there anything I can do? The computer is currently working (I'm typing on it now) but am just wondering if any of you have had similar experiences, and if (by some bizarre means) you managed to fix this without a HDD change.

Ta.

 

[wordmunger]

I've just had two small spells of grotesque crunching noises from my iBook's Hard Drive. Crunching maybe isn't the right word actually - more like clunking.

Sounds like it's ready to die. I've had this happen before, and eventually the HD gave out. The things aren't exactly servicable, and given how cheap replacements are these days, it makes sense just to replace. Unfortunately not a very easy job with an iBook.

 

[thequicksilver]

It has indeed died, and is going into the repair shop tomorrow most likely.

I think I made the right decision in getting that Apple Care package...

 

[IJ Reilly]

There's a small chance the drive isn't mechanically shot but it has sufficiently severe directory damage issues that it's having difficulty with read and write operations. Did you try running fsck or disk utility on it?

 

[Maxiseller]

SMART Reporter is a great little program to have on hand at times like this. I have a small green picture sitting quietly in my corner of the screen reassuring me that the drive is fine. Honestly, take a look for your next drive; it may just give you those vital minutes to make a back up.

 

[thequicksilver]

There's a small chance the drive isn't mechanically shot but it has sufficiently severe directory damage issues that it's having difficulty with read and write operations. Did you try running fsck or disk utility on it?

No can do - the drive won't even read now. I'm logged into my Mac via an emergency bootable Panther partition and trying to access the hard drive all but locks the system.

My full backup I made last night has proved especially prescient - thank you SuperDuper.

FWIW re: SMART - when these problems started, I opened Disk Utility to look at the SMART status, and it read "Verified".