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My laptop, which I've had for 5 months now, is sometimes making a tapping sound. I suspect this to be the HDD needle tapping against the center.

This doesn't happen often. Last time was a couple of weeks ago. At least when I was awake. The thing is on almost day & night. Last time it restarted was about a week ago.

It's been summer, so I haven't been taking it anywhere. With school starting again, I'll need to bring it back and forth, so it'll be shutting down and starting up at least daily during workdays.

I'm moving most my essential data to an external HDD now, fearing that my laptop might not start up again because of a possible HDD failure.

Besides this small thing I noticed, it runs excellent. Games and work alike run smooth and without problems.

Do I need to worry here?

The laptop is this one: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=5081041&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&query=LF748EA

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  • How does the tapping sound? Some taps are the IO operations of the drive. Others are an indicator of future failure. Sep 26, 2011 at 2:41
  • @Justin_Pearce: I've had an external HDD fail once. If I ever plug that one in, it taps constantly, at a steady rate. These taps are fast, but not steady and not a lot.
    – Koen027
    Sep 26, 2011 at 3:19
  • My HP did the same thing when new for a few months, then it stopped and has not done it since.
    – Moab
    Sep 26, 2011 at 4:17

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Tapping sound is a strong inidaction that your hard drive is failing. It's a good thing that you have your stuff backed up most people don't even bother till that happens. My suggestion is too just pick up a new drive I'm assuming your warranty is out? if it's still under warranty have HP to replace it. Otherwise replace that drive they're pretty cheap nowadays you don't want to put yourself in a situation where it fails on you while you're in the middle of doing something.

Hope that helps

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