No startup, and hard drive clicking

Yes, I know this has probably been asked thousands of times before, but I haven't managed to find anything recent about it, so:
Having had my screen frozen earlier today, I did a force shut down. I then started up the laptop again, and nothing, apart from that folder with a question mark in it. It hasn't worked since.
So, what do I do? Shall I just take it to Apple, or am I meant to be using my Install Disc and things to undo the damage myself?
Thanks very much,
George.

This is an error that Disk Utilities cannot fix but DiskWarrior usually can. DiskWarrior is one of several tools I consider invaluable but then I'm a professional. $100 is pretty steep for a program that the typical user might wind up using just once. So, DW would be my first choice for solving your problem and will do so in less than an hour. But there are two other solutions. You could backup your data, format the drive, reinstall the OS and applications and then move your data back to the computer.
If you have an external hard drive, the most convenient (and inexpensive) solution is to use SuperDuper! to clone your computer's hard drive. This clone is a file clone, not a block clone so the invalid node structure isn't being copied. Next, start up with your cloned drive to make sure it works - run a couple applications too. Now format the computer's hard drive and clone the external drive to the computer. Again, boot and test. Depending on the size of your hard drive, how much data you have, and how fast your external drive is, this will take 30 minutes to several hours. But if you have the external drive (and you should you know, it is the easiest way to back up your computer) the cost is $0 because the basic clone function of SuperDuper! is free.

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