What's happening to my iBook?

[sjw]

I have a 12" iBook G4 that is about 2 years and 3 months old. I had to get the hard drive replaced after just 1 year ( ) because it failed, but until now it has been fine. I first became aware of a problem while watching an .avi using VLC, the iBook just froze midway through and was completely unresponsive. I tried different .avi files and they have the same problem.

Now the iBook periodically makes loud clicking noises which seem to come from the left palm rest. It will freeze for a moment when I try navigating through folders, then the Finder will reboot itself automatically. I also tried running Photoshop the other day and it opened and froze right away. It makes a quieter clicking sound when these freezes happen..like 'click click click..pause..click click click..'...

Any ideas? Is my iBook about to roll over and die? Many thanks.

 

[thecreativ1]

Re:

It does sound like a hard drive issue. The only 2 things I've ever head click in a laptop was either the hard drive or a fan. And since your noise is not a constant click but a few clicks and a pause, and the fact that your programs are freezing/quitting, I'd say it's definitely the disk.

If you open Disk Utility and select your hard drive in the left-hand column, do you see a "S.M.A.R.T Status" line at the bottom of the window?

Either way, I'd suggest a backup of any important files in the meantime.