Hard Drive Taking Off!

Working in a school district, I have in the past had hard drives start to whine and “ramp up” as to sound like jets taking off. This notably occurs at the opening of an application and startup. This has sometimes been a precursor to HDD failure. Is this common? Is there anything that can be done to alleviate this? There is no rhyme or reason to this. These are the same types of HDD’s and in similar machines that are in the same room. Diagnostics show no problems. Any ideas?