Laptop HD Dying?

[Fulmar]

Recently I've become concerned that the days of my wife's laptop hard drive are numbered.  She has a 3ghz HT P4 Toshiba P15 Series IIRC.  It's just turning 4 years old.  I don't use it very often, but I did notice the other day that when the hard drive was making some loud 'stops'.  As if it were spinning up and then it found what it wanted and when the drive 'stopped' accessing it sounds kind of a loud klunk, louder than normal.  And I can only think that the head is the source of the noise.

Now there is no whining sound like in this youtube clip:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1-GXNi9TWag

If I remember when I get off of work I'll record it either with a mic or camera.

[mipoikel]

As long as you can, take care of backups. Then remove old hard drive and buy new one. They are relatively cheap for laptops and you can replace it yourself. Just remember check if its IDE or SATA drive, propably IDE because it is 4 years old... Reinstall OS.

Or buy a new laptop.

[Fulmar]

It fits her needs just fine.  Might as well spend $60 on a HD rather than $400-$500 on a new budget laptop.  Maybe max the ram out to 2gb.

I'm religious with backups.  I try to keep at least 1 DVD copy and have an easily accessible version on my 500gb back up HD.