Cannot boot into windows - HDD failure?

[Supercow]

Got myself 2 brand spanking new 500GB Samsung Spinpoints and went through the arduous task of reinstalling.

All running fine for a few days, switched the PC off last night, and when I tried to switch it on this morning - can't load into windows

Bios posts fine, bios sees both drives just fine - but when Windows loading bar things runs past - it just keeps going, untill the pc resets itself.
Here's the weird thing, as soon as the bar has gone past about 2 times, there is a ticking/click sound everytime it passes again after that. Does that about 4 - 5 times and then stops. This happens every time without fail.

Cant boot into safe mode either, lists all those sys drivers and things and the PC resets.

Can I safely assume it's a dead hard drive?
Why on earth would it run fine for a few days, and this morning for no reason at all it's Fubar?

 

[Supercow]

No software as such - least none that I know of.
Not thought of the raid drivers to be honest snowdog. I only had Vista update all my drivers etc - think it's worthwhile updating from Gigabyte's site in stead? (have a DS3p)

edit: still makes that ticking sound though when the hard drive is trying to be accessed by the OS - installed the OS on the other HDD last night, and I had a couple of freeze up's with the new one too.

hmmm