Crackling sound on Macbook Aluminum (not speakers, from hard drive)

[jcm38]

Whenever I wake my computer from sleep, there is a crackling sound that comes from the hard drive. After that, every five minutes or so, the crackling sound continues. It's like the sound of some crinkling a plastic sheet/static-y sound. I can hear the hard drive whirring and the crackling sound coming from that.

Is this normal? I have a 2.4 ghz Macbook aluminum, bought in Oct 2008. I'm hesitant to bring it in right now because I have finals coming up in 2 weeks and I need my laptop for it. I've already brought my Macbook in and had it sent in two times due to issues w/ the keyboard (keys not working or falling off), and each time it took about a week to get it back.

 

[jcm38]

Okay so I think its my hard drive messing up. I closed the laptop, it went to sleep, and would not recover from sleep or turn on. I had to remove the battery and put it back it for it to restart. It now makes the noise every few seconds.

 

[Adokimus]

Take it to your local Apple store and set up an appointment at the genius bar. That sound isn't normal, and you should still be under Apple Care coverage. And do it quick... would you rather your HDD just quit during finals? And if you don't get it back by then, make sure you're doing your work at the library or (if using your laptop) make sure you're backing up your work every couple minutes to an external HDD or to an online backup.