Laptop Hard Drive Problem

Sometimes my laptop's hard drive makes alarmingly loud noises.

It was doing this often several months ago.  Then the problem went away.  Two weeks ago it returned.

Ubuntu has had problems with some laptop hard drives in the past.  But more recent versions of the operating system have supposedly fixes these, so I doubt that a recent update has reintroduced the problem.  Furthermore, the two fixes:

1. Turning off "spin down hard disks when possible" in both places (plugged in and battery power) within the Power Management preferences.

2. The terminal command

sudo hdparm -M 128 -B 255 /dev/sda

Do not help, neither months ago or currently.

It might be time to shop for a new laptop--one that is designed and sold with Ubuntu.  Any suggestions?