hard drive clicking cry for help

This Slashdot article warns that a default setting may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature / acpi bug / OS configuration.

If the load cycling count has a high value, compared to the expected life time of the hard drive and the expected maximum load cycle count, then your hard drive might be affected too.

burrow:/home/matt# smartctl -d ata -a /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.36 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     TOSHIBA MK6008GAH
Serial Number:    X639W9EGW
Firmware Version: BU011A
User Capacity:    60,011,642,880 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   6
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Fri Nov  2 20:16:46 2007 GMT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled


=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                       was never started.
                                       Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                       without error or no self-test has ever
                                       been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                 ( 387) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                       Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                       Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                       command.
                                       Offline surface scan supported.
                                       Self-test supported.
                                       No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                       Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                       power-saving mode.
                                       Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                       General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  76) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
 3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Always       -       1817
 4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       707
 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
 9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       986
10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0033   114   100   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       344
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       10
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       7364
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       40 (Lifetime Min/Max 9/46)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
220 Disk_Shift              0x0002   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       8231
222 Loaded_Hours            0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       893
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
224 Load_Friction           0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
226 Load-in_Time            0x0026   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       196
240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0001   100   100   001    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       967         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       681         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       679         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       419         -
# 5  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       280         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       188         -
# 7  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       182         -
# 8  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       164         -
# 9  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       111         -
#10  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       100         -
#11  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        98         -
#12  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        82         -
#13  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        43         -
#14  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        40         -
#15  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        33         -
#16  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        31         -
#17  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        29         -
#18  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         0         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
   1        0        0  Not_testing
   2        0        0  Not_testing
   3        0        0  Not_testing
   4        0        0  Not_testing
   5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
 After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

On my Dell Latitude D420, changing the apm setting alone didn't improve the situation, while changing both apm and spindown_time resolved the issue:

/dev/sda {
 apm = 255
 spindown_time = 0
}