Big whirring noise - hard drive?

Sometimes when I bump my iBook a little bit, it freezes and there's this really terrible whirring noise, I think it's the hard drive, but I'm not sure. It has also happened when closing the screen: instead of going to sleep, it will make the noise but not always freeze, and then I can just use it again.
Another thing that makes me think it might be the hard drive is that I was trying to listen to music while typing a paper yesterday, and iTunes kept skipping, like it wasn't reading the drive fast enough.
Thanks in advance for any help.

It might be that you have too many things opened and is running at over 100%. The hard drive on my kids' iBooks whir when they are watching movies, typing papers and listening to music. It seems when there are over 5 programs open and running, there is slow performance and whirring occurs.
-Chris

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Big whirring noise - hard drive?

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