IMac hard drive is clicking and keeps crashing

Am really getting quite concerned about my imac. It's 3 years old (Apple protection plan just ended a month ago!!) and over the last month or so I've noticed it keeps making a loud clicking noise coming from the hard drive (righthand side if the computer), on one occassion it started to make a loud whirring, like a fan, but was fine once I restarted. In the last couple of days it's crashed/frozen several times (whilst making the clicking noise) and I've had to restart it. Today I lost 2 files I was working on as they became corrupt after the crash. I keep reading that these noises can mean the hard drive is about to fail so I am really scared now. I'm not very good with technical things and I work as a freelance designer so my imac is my life!. I've done a What should I do?
I keep all my work files backed up on an external hard drive but do I need to do any kind of special back up incase?

There is no incase your drive is failing.
Make sure the drive is backed up. A  clone in this case would be a good thing to have, this way when the drive totally goes you can boot off the clone and continue to work until you decide what you are going to do with the system.
good luck

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