Impending doom from my hard drive?

[slapguts]

1st Gen. MacBook Air, 1.6, 80gb HD. 31 months old.

Hey folks, in the last day or two my MBA has started making a clicking, fluttering sound. I thought it might have been the fan, either dust or lint build up. Popped the bottom off, cleaned the fan, and the sound is still there. While holding it over my head, I noticed that the sound seems to be coming from the area of the hard drive.

Here's a recording-

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13942518/Hard_Drive_Sounds.m4a

I use Time Machine, and nightly full Carbon Copy backups, so I'm not too worried about data loss. Just wondering if I should make a Genius appt. ASAP, or if this will wait for a bit.

Thanks.

 

[psirix]

Failure sounds imminent... if you have applecare get a appointment asap, or get a HDD ordered. Good job keeping your data backed up, this shouldn't be that big of an issue for you as long as you can spare a little time as everything gets restored.

 

[deedas]

I'll take a listen to the audio you linked but I can already tell you that I'm 99% sure it's the hdd.

Edit: Oh yeah that's the head bumping against something. Great work on keeping back ups. I have time machine and I super duper once a month.

 

[slapguts]

Well bummer. I'm covered by AppleCare until May of 2011, so I guess it's time to make an appointment. Might as well have the floppy hinge taken care of while I'm at it.