Q: I turned on my computer today and my hard drive goes grind grind click click so I rebooted it and then it started clicking real fast and kinda loud. I turned it right off. It wasn't making a sound yesterday. It is only 8 months old. I have important data I need to back up and it usually takes about 40 mins to back up everything on my drive to a slave when I redo my computer. Do you think it will last long enough to do that?
A: Are you absolutely certain it's the hard drive? It sounds like something got into the case and is hitting the case fan. Unplug the computer and open it up. Take a can of compressed air and dust it out, paying attention to the fans and CPU cooling fins. Get the dust out and start it up. If it actually is the hard drive then begin backing up now! Hopefully you'll be able to save the info you need. If you send it back to the manufacturer understand they will have access to that info and many times it's cheaper for them to give you a new hard drive so they will, which means your info is lost forever.