Laptop noises
 

I apologize if this is an unanswerable question, but my laptop (that I love and am trying to keep running as long as possible) has started making four clicking noises when booting up. It doesn't make them if already running and I restart.

The noise doesn't seem to be deleterious so far since everything works fine but I'm a little concerned that it's a harbinger of Bad Things To Come. I'm wondering if it would be useful to take it in for repair and have them look under the hood to see if something is scraping or out of whack inside.

Or just leave well enough alone?

A clicking hard drive is going to go very, very soon back up while you can.
A clicking fan blade is also a problem. If the fan stops and the CPU overheats that everything will just stop and there goes the computer.

How old is the laptop? What is the make and model number?

Yes I agree, get an external hard drive and backup your files, right away. If you are uncomfortable doing this, I would suggest MMD Computer Center, Inc.
109 S U.S. Highway 441, Lady Lake, FL 32159. They did a repair on one of my laptops and I was very satisfied. I am sure they would be able to back up your PC and then figure out what is wrong.

Oh, dear. I back up weekly so that's not the problem, but I just really like the keyboard and touch pad layout of this machine.

Thanks for the advice. I'll see if the MMD people can take a look.

Update: Indeed, it turns out the hard drive was on its last legs. I had a new one installed and am back in business with the keyboard and touchpad layout I like. Figure I can keep the thing going for another 4 years now. :)

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

Thanks for the update and glad you were able to get this fixed before the big crash.

or you could just turn the volume down. no really back up all your files and photos etc. Bad things are going to happen.