a quote from http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/storage/mus
"After some exhaustive searching online I found the answer and it's certainly a new one on me. The drive is a Maxtor (now owned by Seagate) and it seems Maxtors have an interesting solution to a common problem. If the heads become stuck to the lubricant on the platter, the drive tries to get the heads free by vibrating the head at different frequencies. Sometimes this actually works although I'd not fancy using the drive much afterwards. When it doesn't, the entire platter ends up vibrating and effectively becomes a speaker. The musical notes are the different frequencies being tried by the firmware to free things.
Seagate/Maxtor's website makes no mention of this that I could find but it does get mentioned elsewhere so I can only assume unless anyone knows differently that this is indeed true."
I have no idea if this is true either, but i have heard maxtor drives do that before myself. For me it was unfortantely a lost cause, as i was unable to get the drive to work again. But the first time i heard those tones it freaked me out because i knew nothing in my machine should be making that noise 
There are tons of none offical ways to try and get the drive going again. If you believe the heads are stuck to the platter sometimes a light tab on the side of the drive can loosen them. Some people like to stick them in the freezer for a few hours then try and boot them up (one of my favs depending on the sounds it's making).
Let me be clear however, these are 100% last ditch efforts!!!!!! I guarantee no one from Seagate would ever recommend these prodecures. 
