Hard drives can die at any time, but typically you get some kind of warning from sounds they make. Usually any sound that a hard drive makes, other than a spinning noise of course, is bad. Here is an interesting page from a data recovery company which gives various sounds from different brands of hard drives which are dying.

Some (obvious) advice from their web site:

These are some typical sounds we hear in our data recovery lab. If your hard drive makes noises like these and you are still able to access your files – backup immediately.

One other thing to note on this page:

If you want to use these sounds in your music (yes, we have received lots of requests already) – no problem, but please contact us first.

So be on the lookout for some dying hard drive music…