Hard Drive dead?

I have a Compaq Presario 17XL460 Laptop of which I think the hard drive is dying and I would like another opinion please:

The computer had been on most of the day, plugged in, sitting on top of a cooling fan pad. The Windows Auto Updates installed and the computer automatically shutdown and began to reboot to complete the install. It would not complete the boot process (blank screen right before the desktop would normally show up). I waited quite some time, then did a hard shutdown (power button). I tried to boot again pressing F8 to get to safe mode, in case the updates had caused a problem, and I got an error that the operating system could not be found. I shut down the thing and went to bed. The next morning I started it up. It booted all the way to the main desktop, but would not continue loading the F-Secure, printer software and wireless connection. I could hear a slight sound of (possibly) the hard drive making a noise as if it was skipping, or repeating (like an old record). I shut it down and assumed the hard drive was in the process of dying. Am I this lucky? LOL

It does very much sound like it, what you could do if you have access to another PC is download some diagnostic tools for your hdd, just goto you hdd manufacturers website and download the software and run a check your drive

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I am assuming you're on XP...
Well I had exactly that problem, but mine didn't come back haha, it died...

When i got a new hard drive, i managed to find something on the internet,
One said that you should get hold of an XP disk, and run a hard drive scan, i never did this because i couldnt be bothered lol....
But the XP disk, is meant to restore all files that may be lost, and attempt to recover any faults..

It is best to try it, even if you're hard drive seems to be working correctly at this moment.