Sony Vaio Laptop Hard Drive--clicking and whistling

[stanjones]

Suddenly I can't get past my hard drive boot up. If it boots up all the way, the screen freezes. I generally can't get past a certain point. What happens is the hard drive clicks loudly and then whistles in a descending pitch--sort of like an old guy letting out his breath with a bit of a whistle. Do I need to replace the hard drive? Can get some info off the computer?