imac making strange noises

[fish markets]

ive had a look around an only found bits an pieces relating to this but nothing really specific.

i have an imac 3.06ghz, 4gb memory. less than a year old
its been making some noises recently (like a downloading sound for afew seconds every so often) which happens every 30 seconds or so. this happens even when theres no programs open and im not connected to the internet!!!
ive only really noticed it doing this the last month or so to be honest.

the computer has also been re-formated about a month ago as it was passed onto me from a family member, an im wondering if its got anything to do with that?

is this a normal thing for macs an maybe i just havent noticed it before, or does it sound like something is wrong??

appreciate any feedback at all..

-fm

 

[TMRaven]

What's a downloading sound?

 

[fish markets]

sorry guess i didnt explain that too well. the hard drive is making a loading noise, like when you first boot up a computer or open a program. except its doing this when theres no programs open an the internets disconnected.
is this normal?

 

[TMRaven]

Think of the hard drive as the heart of the computer. It has to work no matter if you're opening programs or not. There are always background tasks going on for the operating system without your doing, so you can think of the hard drive as doing involuntary work.

 

[fish markets]

that makes sense. thanks for writting back raven