On my desktop PC, one of my 7200RPM hard drives just started making a lot of noise tonight. Seems to be related to regular rotation rather than accessing, because the noise seems pretty constant, regardless of whether I'm reading/writing from the drive. I already copied off all the important data on the drive, but I'm just kinda wondering if it's just a matter of time before it dies, or if hard drives can suddenly "become noisier" with no immediate ill effects other than the noise.

So is my drive likely to burst into flames within the next few days? Is it fine to use it as a temp drive until it blows out? The drive seems to work fine, and the noise isn't quite up to aircraft levels, but it's definitely louder and whinier than it was. Just curious if anyone's had this happen before.