It seems my old Inspiron 3800’s 20GB Hitachi hard disk is making funny noises. I brought it upstairs to investigate, as it sounded like a fan was clogged. I opened it up and found no issues. And the noise went away. So, I stuck the hard disk back in and powered it up, just in case. And, of course, it’s the hard disk making the funny noises. Sigh.

The label on the disks says: Fear not! This disk may make strange sounds!

So, I figure it might be okay.

I decide to upgrade the kernel. I stick in an old Cardbus NIC and track down an Ethernet cable to wire it up. And, well, I picked up the cable in a strange way and the connector end along with two feet of cable came sailing down. In a freak accident, the connector slammed into the laptop where the hard disk is installed. Immediately it starts emitting alarming noises.

It doesn’t give up the ghost, though. I ran badblocks and it came back clean. Finally I decided this isn’t the weekend to have my laptop messed up from upgrading to the latest packages in Debian Sarge and installing 2.6.10, so I set it up downstairs again where it seems to be working fine.

That’s a relief.

Meanwhile I am no closer to starting my guide on using Dirivish…