Why does my hard drive open and immediately close when clicked on?

to me this sounds like a software problem, or perhaps some corrupted file somewhere. it sounds like the Finder is crashing when you try to access top level directory of your hard disk. I've heard of problems where a corrupted .DS_Store file or some other user file on the disk causing Finder to barf when it opens the containing directory

I assume that you can run other applications and do other things on your Mac without problem. Do you notice any other symptoms?

Here's a couple things to try before you resort to replacing your hard drive

1) Can you open other folders in the Finder? (press Cmd-N to get a new Finder window, then navigate from there...)

2) open the Console (since you can't open your hard disk, you may need to launch the Console app by first searching for "Console" in Spotlight, then hitting return

With the Console open, cause the Finder to crash and then take a look for any clues in the console listing

3) perhaps try running Disk Utility (again, you may need to first find it in Spotlight in order to launch it) - try repairing the disk and/or repairing the permissions to see if that helps

4) does the problem still occur if you create a new user, then try to open the hard disk logged in as the new user? (just to make sure there's not something wonky with your user and settings)

p.s. if you are suspecting your hard drive is failing, do you have a backup already?

It could be a hard drive problem but it is more likely to be a software problem, I would check you have the latest firmware before re-imaging with a fresh image.

Before that though, try holding +S at startup, then type fsck -fy and if your hard drive is broken it will repair it hopefully.

If it is neither of these, you will need a new hard drive.

Like bac, I think it's a corrupt file. I've had this exact thing happen on a couple of computers, only with the desktop folder.

In that case, the folder would close only when in one mode (icon, say) and be fine in another (like column). What I did was navigate to the troubled folder (by starting in another folder and navigating to it in the desired mode), then moving or deleting files till I found the culprit. The .DS_Store file is a good place to start, though, being invisible, is a little harder to deal with.

In that case, I booted the computer in Target Mode and did the deletions and moving from a different Mac. This may be difficult with your root level, because of all the system files there.

However, if your Finder is crashing (do other icons disappear from your desktop momentarily when this happens?) it may be a Stuffit problem instead. You can delete Stuffit with this:

ftp://ftp.smithmicro.com/mac/NukeStuffit...

and see if your problem goes away. If so, make sure you replace Stuffit with the newest version, if you still want it.

Good luck.