Dead hard disk?

[id_wright]

Was playing GTA last night when the game froze, nothing seemed to happen so I rebooted. Posts fine, but when the hard disk would normally spin up and boot into Windows I'm just getting an ominous clicking sound. Still appears as normal in bios.
So, dead disk?
Really hope not as I didn't have enough of it backed up...
Anything I can try?

 

[id_wright]

What does AHCI mean sorry?
I've disconnected the disck, and attached an old hard disk that I'd never quite got round to removing from my case.
This has allowed me into Windows XP. After cooling, should I then attach the suspect drive as a secondary hard disk? Do I then just set to boot from the xp disk in bios?
Thanks for the reply

 

[id_wright]

Thanks for the reply. I booted it as a secondary disk and it allowed me full access to all my data, so that's all safe now. Currently running Seagate's diagnostics (which it is failing) before I contact them for a warranty replacement.
Thanks for the help.