Hard drive noise(tick, tick) and folder with question mark.

Sometimes my wife's macbook (13.3 inch late 2007) hard drive starts making a tick, tick noise when booting up and then a folder with a question mark appears on the screen. If we turn off and on the laptop for a few more times the problem will continue but sometimes the laptop will start successfully.

Do you guys think the hard drive needs replacement? Is there something else that might need replacement? I wanted to try to repair the disk from the install DVD but this macbook came with no disks. I ran the disk utility from within the system not from the install dvd and it says that the hard drive is ok.

Do you guys now where can I get the install disk to try repairing the disk?

The weird thing is that the macbook runs ok for a few months and then does the noise (tick, tick) again and then it fixes it self. Do you guys think that the hard drive might need to be re-seated (remove and install again)? When the computer is running successfully the hard drive appears to be ok.


Thank you guys!

Looks that that hard drive is about to die, i would recommend backing everything up ASAP (maybe even cloning the drive) and get a new drive so to avoid further problems.

Santino said:

Looks that that hard drive is about to die, i would recommend backing everything up ASAP (maybe even cloning the drive) and get a new drive so to avoid further problems.

Click to expand...

I agree completely. I have seen to may hard drives dies and they all click just before they go dead. I would also recommend backing up all your data as soon as you get the chance.

On the way out particularly if a Hitachi drive is installed. Goes back to the old IBM Death Star days!