Whining sound on Macbook - HDD Failure?

[macdatadrive]

My Late 2009 unibody (white) MacBook has just started making a high pitching whining noise, and I'm really worried it's a failure. Disk Utility says for S.M.A.R.T. status that it is verified but then I don't know what else this could be!
Please help (I'll give you a cookie! Only raisin though...)

 

[imaketouchtheme]

Does it make a ticking noise? That model, if it's the original hard drive, was fairly prone to early hard drive failure. It's probably a Seagate hard drive.

 

[macdatadrive]

Does it make a ticking noise? That model, if it's the original hard drive, was fairly prone to early hard drive failure. It's probably a Seagate hard drive.

No, it's Toshiba. 250GB

 

[throAU]

FANs? Check with istatpro for what speed they are running at - if they are running very fast they make lots of noise.

Could be caused by heat or maybe a dodgy/loose temp sensor.

 

[paperclip777]

I also have a similar problem.

I'm not sure if it's the fan or the hard drive, I think it's the fan.

You can hear here... it's sounds pretty awful, http://soundcloud.com/rob-tierney/this-is-what-my-mac-sounds

I have dropped my mac... so I guessing it's some sort of mechanical problem?

A few months ago, I also installed smcFanControl.... as my mac was running very hot... could this have caused the problem?

I also upgraded my hard drive to a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BEKT 500GB, and upgraded the ram to, 8gb, CORSAIR 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1066

I'm living in China now, so, no access to mac store.

Should I just try replacing the fan? I can buy one online.


@throAU... could it be the heat sensor? If so, is this a big problem?

Cheers