Problem with hard drive???

[Jim200]

My father-in-law's computer has recently developed a problem. Sometimes it will freeze up and the hard drive sounds like it is looking for something, (cycling noise). When he powers down and then re-starts, the computer will freeze before it gets through the POST. The other day when the hard drive was "cycling," he tilted the computer about 45 degrees and it began to work properly again. It doesn't do this all the time; sometimes it will go a month or more with no problems. He took it to a repair shop but the computer worked properly and they couldn't find any problems.
ASUS motherboard (not sure which model)
P2-266
Fugitsu 4.3G hard drive

[Target]

The hard-disk sounds suspect to me. Try to run a surface scan on it, and if you have any other hard-disk utilities to test it with, I think it would be worth your time.

Might be a good idea to get a back-up of it as well.