Scary clicks... pending hard disk failure?

This morning, our iMac would not boot. After turning it on, I heard a series of three clicks (as if it was trying to start spinning something), and then appeared a screen with a blinking lightgrey folder icon.
I inserted the Install CD and did a hardware test, which did not detect any problem. After this, the computer booted again. While I was logged, I used the Disk Utility to verify the disk, again no problem. I switched the computer off.
Later, when I turned it on, the same problem happened: a series of three clicks followed by a blinking folder icon. I booted from Install CD and canceled the installation process. After this, the computer booted from the hard drive normally.
Next, I came back to the computer (I had not shut it down) and logged in. At that point, I heard the now infamous clicks again.
I am predicting that the hard disk is about to fail. Is this indeed the case? Or would it be some other component? Is there some utility that I could use to detect what is wrong?
Thanks for your help.
Best,
David.
--

Well, as other posters here have noted, your internal drive is failing but I can't see why you can't select an external for boot up without the internal trying to mount afterwards. That part sounds like maybe the System software somehow got corrupted while the internal was in the process of failing. If you can't boot up into the external drive cleanly next time, maybe you should consider doing an archive and install of your system software to clean things up. Painful thought, I know but besides chewing up some of your time I don't see how it could hurt and it just may solve the problem. There IS, after all, a long weekend coming up
Rick

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