compaq armada E500 disk drive not reading discs and making clicking noise

[TrustyOlCompaq]

the disk drive has stopped reading discs. When you try to use a disk, it speeds up, then goes ker-click! the drive slows down and starts repeatedly going ker-cick ker-click ker-click! and not reading the disk. I am certain the problem is in the drive itself, and not the software running it. sometimes while trying to read a disk, the entire machine freezes for a minute or so.

 

[ganon11000]

with a laptop that old it's not worth repairing the issue (and yes it is a hardware fault, it happened to my E500 5 years ago before I scrapped it)

You really should look at a pentium M laptop on eBay as that would be loads faster and still cheap.