When traveling with a laptop, ALWAYS turn it off before you pack it up. It can help to protect the hard drive from accidental damage – especially if the laptop should fall, get dropped, or bumped. This info may help with the imagery: When you shut down a computer, the hard drive heads go into a “parked” position, rather than “floating”. It’s something like putting a car into “park” vs. “neutral”.
You’d never leave your car in neutral unattended, would you?