Microsoft → Re: [WIN7] Constantly clattering HD....

Boot into safe mode and see if it still does it.

If not, then you know you have some software (application or service) that is constantly accessing the drive. Then you can focus your search to narrow down the suspects.

Also, do you have your power settings to power down the drive when idle?

OP here: Here's what's been done so far, in disabling the disk indexing / search services... I disabled the SuperFetch service. I thought I had stopped & disabled the Windows Search Service, but I hadn't. --I just did that. I also went down this registry path: HKLM | SYSTEM | Current Control Set | Control | Session Manager | Memory Management | PreFetch Parameters. Once there, I made the two keys, "Enable Prefetcher" and "Enable superfetch" both equal zero. I just fired the device up here at my house (not connected to the ActiveDirectory domain at work. The HD seems calm now. Some things above I changed earlier in the week, but these two are new: 1.) Disabling Windows Search Service and 2.)Booting up NOT on the AD domain. HD is quiet now --

Search will definitely access the hard drive a lot until it's completely indexed. If the machine has sat idle for many hours (12+) and it's still indexing, then there's something wrong. (Depending on what's running getting it to actually be idle may be tricky.)

How big is the drive? When was the last time you ran this?:
chkdsk /f /r

OP here: OK - Time for egg on my face... Raise your hand if you knew that a faulty bearing in the CPU fan sounds like a clattering hard drive??? I removed the HD, and put in a spare I had, so I could set up another copy of Win7, for a project. I was surprised to hear the SAME sound after I was done installing & tweaking. HD light was out - no disk access, but the clattering continued. I tipped the laptop on its side carefully, and the clattering promptly stops. Mystery solved I guess. Now -- when that fan fails, the machine goes up in a puff of smoke -- CPU will burn up.

Good thing it's:
A) your company's problem
B) new and still under warranty

FYI: Disabling Windows Search Service will break some of the functionality of Libraries.