the computer in question is a Sony Vaio.It is barely a year old but it starts to make clicking noises.I suspect hard drive immiment failure but am not sure.Can anyone suggest ways to solve it?

sounds like the drive is on its way out too, from the little info you describe, make a an image of the drive to an external hdd, then run the sony drive tests, you can also download test programs from the drive manufacturers website,
better to be safe than sorry so make that image asap, you can use win 7 backup to create an image,
and if its still under warranty, call the service desk and ask them to replace the drive..i hate computers!
but cant help myself....
... might be the fan hitting debris! ... you may be lucky, please post model name << click
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Grrrr... ...im
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