Harddisk kaput

Kung mamalasin ka nga naman, I suddenly heard a "cracking" sound on my laptop today---specifically in the harddisk area. The Windows welcome-screen upon startup just seemed to stay there forever, the progress bar endlessly illuminating from left to right like that of Michael Knight's car.

I removed the battery and put it back on again. Still the same thing happened. I tested my patience and waited for it to finish booting ---cracking sound in tow.

Well I can sadly say that the harddisk may be faulty. The occassional cracking sound, aside from being annoying, seems to be telling me that it has taken the last straw from all my WMV and MP3 downloading.

Our IT department says the harddisk replacement will come in 2 weeks' time. So I will have to bear with this for a little while longer. In the meantime I'm backing-up all my important files to our server (good thing it has a lot of space; gigabyte heaven!).

Damnit! There goes the cracking sound again! Arrrrghhhh!