Hard drive packing in?

[brassmonkey001]

The laptop didn't want to start this morning. It said something about no bootable drive available. Ran the diagnostics and it failed the HDD test but everything else was OK.
I tried rebooting several times by pressing F1 and Ctrl-Alt-Del but with no success so I tried holding the power button down for a bit. There was then a couple of clicks and it started fine.
I've heard the odd clicking noise a couple of times before (sometimes worse i.e. more prolonged) but it hasn't refused to start like this until now.
It's not that old, I'm not sure if it's still in warranty or not (probably ran out last week going by my experience).
What should I do?

 

[richie]

Had a similar problem a few weeks ago, turned out to be a Worm Virus, but I did not have any undue clicking.

 

[Padge]

Had something similar with my Acer Laptop recently.
Few strange noises from HD then some applications locking up (MS Word etc).
Finally it wouldn't boot.
There was only a few hours between the symptoms starting and it dying completely.

I'd recommend you backup what's important onto a DVD or external drive and call the service dept of wherever you bought it (or the manufacturers).

The biggest pain was being without the Laptop for 2 weeks while they replaced the HDD. Most places wond do a recovery for you for free (it's a nice money earner for them) so assume your computer will come back blank if you send for repair.

 

[wildbeeste]

OK My laptop did the same this week.
HDD dignostics etc all said hard disc was useless
Had all the virus chcckers you can imagine so assumed it was a hardware fault. It is two years old
Is there something we should know about?

 

[Kritou]

Sameish problem here on my Packard Bell EasyNote - took it to a repair shop where they diagnosed a HD problem. They cloned the contents onto a new Seagate and charged £35 plus £47 for labour

 

[Big Lee]

I got a new hard drive fitted to my laptop, 200GB for just over £100 so if it`s a smallish one like my 40GB was treat yourself to a new one