On my laptop the hard drive makes a constant noise as if it's constantly being accessed. It's not an error on the drive, since it doesn't happen under windows. The problem just started recently under Linux, so the drive has functioned correctly before. I've seen many threads on the subject, but none that solves my problem :-(

I was thinking, it could be a read/ write instruction, that somehow couldn't find it's way home... Is there a way to flush all read/write instructions to the hard drive?

I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 on a kernel v. 2.6.22-14-generic.

Running the "sync" command a few times should clear all the pending drive operations, so if it is still going after that, something sounds wrong.

Now it stopped... I took the power, removed the battery and the hard drive, and inserted them again. Didn't get around to do the sync think before, so I don't know if that would have worked.

Thanks!

Hmmm, now it started again. - The sync command doesn't help... :-(

I saw a bug posted about HD access in Ubuntu.. don't know if this is your issue or not.. but it doesn't look like a good issue to have..
https://launchpad.net/bug59695.html
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/104535

top in a terminal will tell you what is running (q to quit). Maybe you have a slocate -u or similar job running to index all your files, so you can easily find them later.
free in a terminal will tell you if you are using swap (= you do not have enough memory for the tasks you are executing, so the disk is v. busy)

Thanks for the hint, it seems to be the same problem I'm having, :-(. There is a hack on the linked page that helped (and keeping the laptop wired helps as well).