M2 hard drive tick-tacking? true?

Hi, I found this comment from RayM2, an M2 user, in one of the older threads:

"Toshiba M2 use Hitachi 5k80 series harddisk which has implemented "Load / unload technology". The HDD head will go to parking automatically when ideal. However, this makes the HDD always tick-tick-tick (working-parking-working-parking-........" when some program need to access the harddisk once every few seconds..... I need to turn off the auto-backup function in the Windows so as to stop this noise completely."

A question to those extremely helpful M2 users who've shared their impressions with me recently on the laptop's ergonomics:

Do you find that there is indeed such a problem with the Tecra M2's hard drive?

You know, since I'm quite sensitive to all sorts of annoying noises from a laptop (whether from a fan, or a harddrive, whatever), this is an extremely important question for me...

Would be very grateful for any comments!

Thank you "sinner 6."

And come on, are there no other Toshiba M2 users that could offer their advice? Please! This is v. important to me. My decision whether or not to get the Tecra M2 hinges on an answer to this question right now. I have previously heard that the fan of the laptop runs quietly, but now I have these doubts about the hard drive.

Thanks a lot, cknobman.

Do you think it makes any difference for the problem in question that the cheaper configuration that I'm considering has a 4200 rathen than 5400 drive? Is your drive also the Hitachi something that the contributor above had that problem with (although, like you, he apparently turned off Windows restore and got it solved), or is it just generally a higher-quality drive? (besides being faster)?

OK, so I'm the person who started this thread.
In the end, I did get a Toshiba Tecra M2 and I am fairly satisfied with it, although unfortunately I am not happy with the drive.
Now that I have the computer, I would not describe the noise as "tick-tacking", and I am not even sure if the problem that I described when starting this thread is the problem I am experiencing, but still I am experiencing A problem.
The noise is not so much tick-tacking but rather very short (no more than 1 sec.) high-pitched sounds, coming in very quick succession (but not necessarily at same regular intervals) - it's a bit like some element of the hard drive was turning off, and turning on, off and on, or as if you had some electrical appliance in your hand (like, excuse the comparison, a dental drill) and you were turning the power on, allowing it to "spin" for a sec., and then off, on and off. It's hard to describe, but pretty annoying. It's not the background noise of the drive (the gentle "humming" that you can pretty much only hear when you put your ear to the drive), it's not the "murmur", "purr" (whatever) of the drive when you open or save a file. It's something else: it is clearly in some way connected to disk access, because every time the noise happens, the green lamp on the front of the unit turns on, indicating disk access; but it happens even when the computer is completely idle.

Sometimes happens more, sometimes less. Occasionally it would not do it for a while.

I don't know what this is; is this a problem at all, or just a property of my drive? (4200 rpm 40 GB, made by Toshiba itself). If this is a problem, is this a harware or a software problem (I don't have any unusual applications installed, just office applications). Should I consider exchanging the drive? Or downloading some firmware that would change the way the drive works and stop the noise?

I'd be very grateful for any thoughts.