Know of an app to analyze a possibly failing HDD?
 

Well hey there. One of my drives has begun making odd sounds every few minutes that it didn't used to make. I'd like to know if there's an application I can install that will be able to tell me which hard drive it is that's having problems so I can replace that one. It's not happening frequently enough for me to tell which one is making the noise, unfortunately, but I just don't know what else to do to figure out what's wrong before it fails completely.

I would check out smartmontools.

Cool! Thanks a bunch cgjones, that looks like it'll do the trick.

Go straight to the hard drive manufacture and download their utilities. Their utilities may be able to give you some information. Though if you think the drive might be failing, it is best to backup the data and plan on buying a new drive. IMHO, human senses are a lot better than S.M.A.R.T. when detecting hard drive failure.

speaking of S.M.A.R.T., is it any use if the BIOS prints that S.M.A.R.T. is DISABLED on boot?
for example on my last 2 motherboards there were no S.M.A.R.T. options in the CMOS setup program...
does S.M.A.R.T. still gather the bad sectors and other errors even when its disabled?

From the smartmontools FAQ:

thanks, thats clear it up.

If your hard drives make clicking sounds, then for all practical purposes they are on their last legs. Backup any data you don't wish to lose ASAP. Good luck with it