PC freeze with ticking sound

In the last 4-6 weeks my Dell 530 has frozen twice (bought it in Jan-08).

Its after it has been on for 24+hours. I hear a ticking sound and get no response when it is in Vista, I have to do a manual reset but then the PC does not boot (it does POST). I just get the ticking sound and it hangs.

The way I have fixed it both times is to insert the diagnostic CD and run it for the specific "Will not Boot OS" test, this takes about 4+ hours as it tests every HDD sector. Once this is complete it finds no errors and the Machine will then Boot to Vista, strange.

I couldn't locate where the Ticking was coming from, I guess its the HDD but it could be the PSU. Next time it happens I will remember to open the case so I can locate exactly where the sound is coming from.

Any ideas, could my HDD be dying? Also despite "my system" the original Dell PSU is back in the machine as I haven't got around to swapping the Corsair back out of my other PC when I was doing some testing on a DOA Mobo

Thanks

Sounds like a intermittent fault with the HDD, I've had the ticking and OS freeze problem many times. Occasionally it disappears with a bad sector scan/fix, full drive format then OS re-installation, other times a drive replacement is necessary which seems to be the case here.

If it is the HDD I hope you've got a backup of any important data!

I think it is the hard drive, there is a product called Spinrite http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm, which is pretty good at solving hdd problems, I've used it for many years and sorted out among othe things, hd based mp3 players, microdrives.

Unforturnedly, it costs $89, for which you could buy a good sized new hdd.