Well, First I would open the box and make sure the noise is coming from the HD and not a fan or something. After that (with win9x) run Scandisk and do a surface scan. That will test the drive for physical damage. Finnaly goto this page:

http://www.gateway.com/support/techd...82825716.shtml

Use the scan utility. It will issue the read command to all the sectors on the drive giving you an opportunity to hear the drive for a while.

Hope that helps a bit.

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