S Pilot: The hard rive is so quiet I do not hear it at all. I do see the led flashing sometimes. I tell you what did happen though, I took someone,s advice and let the computer on all nite and jut turned off the monitor. The next day it would not start up and crashed for the first time. I had to call HP to walk me through the steps to get it going. I was lucky and got it going again. I then copied all photos to CD,s The computer,s start up time now is very long. Just a matter of time it will crash for its last time. Glad it is under warrenty. Capt,n