Failing hard drive... help advise!

[C(-)ris]

DRR wrote:
The bad news is that it hangs - and on the PB, even the firewire symbol on screen to indicate FW DM stops moving.

That would be an indication of a drive failure, they don't necessarily make horrible noises when they die. When the symbol stops moving TDM is froze, you will have to restart and try again. Pulling the drive from the machine and putting it in a spare case if you have one sometimes works better than TDM.