Comment 23 for bug 568120

@ Jan: your solution seems to work.

I downgraded hdparm to the official Ubuntu version and added the lines you mentioned, to hdparm.conf (after removing the old lines which I had added, see the message with which I started this topic). Then I rebooted.

The results of nearly two hours testing are thus: the clicking noises of the hard drive don't return, not when the computer is in use and not when it's running idle. I rebooted several times; this caused no troubles.

So it appears that the right situation can be achieved with the official Ubuntu version of hdparm as well. No need to use the newer Debian version.

I'm still curious, though: why does the hdparm version in Lucid need these "new" configuration lines in hdparm.conf, instead of the "old" ones?