I recently got a PowerBook 3400 that would chime, then chirp and make some pretty crazy siren type sounds. The sound would go away and the screen would light up if I disconnected the hard drive. I assumed not enough power was getting to the HDD, so recapped the DC-board and MLB (just three caps) but it made no difference. I installed another hard drive and it booted just fine. I then gave the original drive a good whack on a desk and reinstalled it. It then booted just fine. So something must have been stuck inside the old drive.

Video of the original symptom here.

You weren't kidding at all, it sounded like it was trying to pull you over for speeding!!!

It's amazing how utterly broken these old drives can sound, but still be operational. I have one that makes several "CLONK" sounds before happily booting OS8.6.

You mean the ambulance noises? Yeah the old travelstars do that if they get stuck with stiction and the likes.

I always assumed this was some weird sound coming out of the speaker because of sad caps or something. My PB 3400 does the same thing, but I never bothered to try taking out the hard drive. Now I'll have to do this! :)

It's a sound made by the hard drive's voice coil. Not sure if it's the heads trying to free themselves, or if it's a warning tone that something's wrong. It seems to be specific to IBM Travelstar drives whatever the case may be.

>> 3lectr1c said:

It's a sound made by the hard drive's voice coil. Not sure if it's the heads trying to free themselves, or if it's a warning tone that something's wrong. It seems to be specific to IBM Travelstar drives whatever the case may be. Click to expand...

Maybe they were ahead of their time? YouTube

Indeed, that's why it sounds like a speaker - because a voice coil can be used as a primitive one.