If your drive is clacking turn the machine off. You don't want to attempt to run an OS (even if it is DOS) from a failing drive. I would suggest getting a drive adapter that will allow you to connect the laptop hard drive to another PC and see if you can retrieve data that way.
Another alteranativve is to run an OS from the CD-ROM drive and see if that read only OS can see the drive. If you are comfortable with Linux you can use Knoppix or if you prefer Windows try one called BartPE.
BartPE (this is like a stripped down version of Windows XP that will run from CD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0reKK2ASEaU
Knoppix
http://www.knoppix.net/