Is my laptop dead?

Last night my computer froze and I could hear a grinding noise from the hard drive. It is about 2.5 years old and I use it all the time. I had to manually shot it down and now everytime I start it up it either doesn't load up (10% of the time) or when it does, it runs really slow and normally locks up after a few minutes and the hard drive starts making the grinding/clicking sound again. I'm guessing it's a hard drive problem. Any ideas on what I should do?
I might be under my Apple Care Protection Plan still, does anyone have any thoughts/stories/comments/warnings on going thru them? Is there anything I can personally do to try to fix this problem?
Thanks
PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
Sorry to hear about your problem. I would first try to run the Apple hardware test. Insert the 1st OS X DVD that came with your system, and reboot holding the option key down. Choose the Apple hardware test and follow directions. Choose the extended test. If you have Applecare, you also have TechTool Deluxe (needs to be release 3.0.4 to work with OS X 10.4 Tiger), or you might have access to TechTool Pro, which all do the same types of testing.
The results should give you some guidance on the issue. From your description, it sounds like the hard drive is suspect. If you have warranty coverage, take advantage of it by a trip to the Apple store or a call to Apple support.

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