If you\'re one of the unfortunate MacBook Pro owners plagued by a stalling and clicking hard drive, then you\'re in luck. Apple has stated that MacBook Pro models with malfunctioning 7200RPM 500GB hard drives are in for a fix - and it won\'t require you to ship your laptop off.

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That does sound odd that it is a software fix. If I heard that I too would immediately diagnose it as a dying hard drive.

Possibly a firmware update to resolve a hardware issue? It sounds like the drive's heads aren't parking or are seeking. Yeah, it does make me wonder what Apple is up to. Seems fishy.

I'd hardly call it benign as there are 88 pages of posts on the apple forums!!!

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659&start=0&tstart=0

"'I'd hardly call it benign as there are 88 pages of posts on the apple forums!!! "

Those 88 pages would probably represent 1% of macbook pro owners, If 20 or 30% of owners were having that issue there would have been a fix already.

It is benign in that it doesn't cause any permanent damage. A momentary nuisance that results in zero data loss isn't something to lose sleep over.

It is not benign, if it was Windows there would be threats of rolling heads in Redmond.

A ten second pause is annoying in just about any circumstance, the only time you want to spend waiting is the time you have to and I don't see why Apple should be spared in this case. Of course, Apple fans always use user percentage and BS statistics about any issue to underplay it as much as humanly possible.