Actually it sounds more like someone is hitting the car with a metal bat, first time I heard it I ducked while driving.It is not corrupt files because the noise is now happening on all tracks randomly. Extremely loud pops/cracks making the empeg unusable. There is a scew loose in the case of the empeg so I was going to attempt to take the case apart and remove it. Would the loose screw have damaged components in the machine?? I just had a new 80g HD installed by M.Lord. Could it be the IDE cable now??? Any ideas? Thanks Mike