Gah! Sorry to hear about your Clicking Sound of Doom! That's how we refer to it in my house ever since my girlfriend heard it coming from her Mac and then lost years of photos, music and writing. Two data recovery places couldn't get anything off the hard drive and she's starting all over.
I've been using Mozy, a web-based backup company, for a couple years now. For around $50 a year it automatically backs up your hard drive daily and stores it on their servers. When my hard drive died this past fall I didn't worry (other than the cost of the new machine). I just logged on and downloaded all of my data and I was back up and running.
I know this doesn't help now, but I thought I'd share a way of keeping peace of mind that I use.
Good luck!