HD maybe toast

Happy new year to all,

I'm having problems with my comp. I thinks it's my hard drive. Started Saturday, the computer was on for a while, like usual, and when I came to use it it was jammed. Re-booted, and everything seemed normal, but once it got to the XP loading page, instead of showing the blue login screen, it jumped back to the hardware detection screen. However, this time it gave me a hardware monitor detected an error, see setup and check hardware for info. (Or something like that.) I can reboot 10 times but it just brings me back to the begining. I did notice the sound has changed when the HD starts up. I find it strange because the HD is an 80G Western Digital. Matbe just bad luck, thing that bugs me is I'm wondering if it is still usable. Meaning if I can still get data off of it, I got tonns of familly photos Holidays and that. The rest I'm not worried to much about 'cause I got backups of my other files. Seeing that my problem is of a physical nature, I'm guessing I can just switch the HD( witch would suck!) but I'm more worried about recuperating my files. Any suggestions or can anybody confirme my call.

Thanks a bunch, guys.