Hello all.Hope you can help me.I recently upgraded the hard drive in my wifes Inspiron 7000 to a 20gb IBM travel star.The old drive was full.I installed everything fine and the laptop has been fine for about a week, but a couple of times over the past few weeks the hard drive has started making a loud clicking noise followed by a windows blue screen.I didn't catch the details as my wife restarted the computer but it was some sort of Kernel error.The computer wouldn't start until the next morning.Could it be a heat problem as the drive wouldn't restart until it was cool (we use it on the carpet) or is it a failing hard drive? I bought it second hand but it was suppose to be brand new.Any help would be greatly aprreciated.

Dunno, but running it on a carpet is sure going to restrict the airflow. One also gets what one pays for, usually.

Hi, Unfortunateley I think it could be a failing hard drive because I read up on this in pc world mag. They also had some wav files of what a failing hard drive sounded like and a cliking was one of the sounds. But it is also one of the more fortunate ones because you can still acess the drive to back up. If you want I could try looking for the sound file and e-mail it to you just so we know that is the same problem. It is probably a good idea to put a board underneath the pc because tempriture can change the dynamics of a drive slightly and carpet would keep in the heat. Sorry for the bad news! Mattwizz3

usually when you hear a strange clicking/ticking noise inside the computer, it usually means a failing hardrive, i suggest you backup all of your important data on your laptop, incase you lose it all. i agree with you Mattwizz3, best of luck Montana-cowboy, MTatton

Ok Thanks for the replys... I better start to look for another hard drive be4 this one gives out... Thanks again