Strangely enough, my machine is also making a louder 'whirring' noise than previously, but I wonder if it might be the cooling fan because if I shut it down to 'Standby', it still makes the noise. Presumably, when the machine is on standby, the HD is not doing anything.
The machine is a Dell Dimension series and is about 3 years old.
Any comments welcome.
Cheers,
mcdhu