Since I identified the clicking noise as "HDD head parking", I knew the drive wasn't failing (and ofc I ran every possible HDD health check utility) so the only thing I needed now was a utility to change the acoustic management setting of the drive. And you guessed it, Seagate didn't offer anything like that. Thank you Seagate.
But lets get to the solution:
1. Download the NHC 2.0 Pre-Release 06 (Dell version) http://www.p35-forum.de/files/nhc_2.0_pre_release_06_dell.zip
2. Download and install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (if you don't have it installed)
3. Install NHC
4. Run NHC
5. Go to the newly appeared icon in your system tray and doubleclick [​IMG](it's the one with the CPU frequency...so don't confuse it with the RMclock one)
6. In the window that just appeared select the Settings tab
7. Click Show all NHC options and settings
8. Now select the Hard Disk tab, and under Advanced Power Management select the highest setting: Max. Peformance Mode
Voila, the constant clicking sound is gone for good. Have fun.
PS: Ofc you can play around with the settings. Hope this solves the issue for many inspiron users out there.
狗仔卡
离线
提升卡
置顶卡
变色卡