My laptop sounds like a washing machine

Well, I'm 90% sure that the hard drive is going on the fritz. It's been more noisy than normal the last month or so, and in the last few days it has at times sounded like a helicopter getting ready to take off. Today it has been very loud and ragged sounding almost non stop. So anyways, unless i find something stuck in the fan when i take it apart later......

Now my question for the experts on here is two fold:
A) Is this a good deal on a replacement drive? My current drive is a FUJITSU MHV2080BH PL .... this new one would double my capacity, and unless i missed something is compatible with my laptop. I don't need a super large or fast hard drive for what i do on my laptop, just something reliable that will give as good or better performance and more storage space is a plus.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136071

B) The main problem is that I am overseas, and will be until Xmas or thereabouts. Now I can probably find a hard drive here, but it will be very expensive and a pain in the but to track one down to start with. I have a portable hard drive that I use as backup and some extra storage. If/when my Fush*tsu hard drive dies, how difficult is it to use my external until I can get a replacement from the US? It's not a problem to transfer the entire contents of my hard drive, but how do i go about booting from the external etc... Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2 btw

Thanks in advance and let me know if any additional info is needed.

(did i mention that this happens less then 3 weeks after my 1 yr warranty from HP was up...)

B) Check your BIOS:

If it says you can boot from USB = no problemo.
If it doesn't says you can boot from USB = problemo.

If you get a new drive from NewEgg, get a Seagate or Western Digital.

To check your current hard drive, get HDTune and check the SMART status.

Probably need to clean off the heatsinks/fans.
If it's anything like an issue I had a few years back, that is.

The noise sounds like the hard drives heads are banging against the stops. This is usually a sign of serious read errors (bad sectors). You could try running a "drive test" on it. Right click on the drive's icon in "My Computer" and select properties... go to "tools" and select "error-checking". Check the box marked something like "Scan for and attempt to recover, bad sectors" and then "OK". It will take a while.

There are two main types of laptop drives - IDE and SATA. Check which type you have now, and which type a replacement is. They are not interchangeable. (IDE ones don't always specify, but SATA is newer and it will usually say it's SATA).

If your external hard drive is 2.5", you may be able to remove it from it's external enclosure and install it in the laptop. Laptop drives are easy to replace - there is usually a cover on the bottom with 2 screws that you remove and then pop the drive out.

I ran the drive test you mentioned and it found/repaired 1 bad sector, but it didn't seem to make any difference in the noise. I'm running a hard drive test in the BIOS at this moment that will hopefully not take too much longer.

The current drive is SATA, as is the one I'm looking at on NEWEGG.
I hadn't thought about inserting the external hard drive, that's a good idea as I'm pretty sure it's 2.5 SATA as well.


The more I checked stuff over the more I am suspecting that the problem is actually the fan (the one by the heatsink). It's quite dusty looking and when it was running so loudly I could give it a good sharp rap and it would be nearly silent for a few minutes. I was trying to get to access the fan and give it a few drops of oil to lube it up abit. However, I've never taken a laptop apart (other then adding more RAM which is a 2 screw process), and I can't seem to get it apart..... I'm afraid I'll break it if I force it anymore. Oh for a nice roomy desktop unit again....... lol I tried downloading a manual for my model but it wouldn't work on my connection.
So anyone know the secret to getting inside a HP Pavillion dv9000 without breaking it?

*I checked BIOS and it says that Boot from CD-ROM is enabled; Boot From Floppy is enabled; Boot from INternal Network Adaptor is enabled; nothing about USB at all...... *

Does it say anything about ''Boot from other devices"? Sometimes that classifies as USB, on my BIOS it does I believe.

You can change what it will boot from and which order, try and see if it gives you the option.