>By the hearing alone, you may spot problems.
Yep, was pretty easy to realize when you may have a bad sector on a floppy.
Even hard drives were more than loud enough you could tell when fragmentation was getting bad or the disk was starting to act suspect.
Brzzzzt, tuk tuk tuk tuk brzzzt brzzzt tuk brzzzzt brzzzt
I/O Error :(
You listen to the initial slamming of the head to zero align it, then those happy little tuk, tuk sounds.
It all good, until it isn't!