A disk read error occurred

ok, so I'm sitting there, working on a document for a project, on my nearly 10 year old laptop, when I start hearing this odd clacking sound.  Now mind you,  I keep the volume off  because I hate all the little pings and chirps, and, and, so I figure it's something else and keep on.  But in the back of my mind is this little worm, it's in there, it's moving, I sense it, way way back there, but I can't quite put my fingers on it, something......

Yeah, you know where this is going.  I didn't listen to the little worm till the clacking got louder, and more persistent - I checked the dvd drive, you know, just in case there was an old disc in there, nope, still more clacking, now I'm scrambling, getting the largest flashdrive I have, hoping to back up, before....

oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, don't die yet, please,oh please, oh please, let me get just this one last backup

Yeah, you know where this is going.  No, I haven't backed up in, well, in a very long time.  And, well you guessed it, the machine went to the blue screen and advised me it was doing a memory dump,  I shake the flashdrive at the screen and scream dump here, dump here!

I've turned it off and let it rest, then on again, 3 times, to no avail!  I've tried in SafeMode(f8)  no luck.

A disk read error occurred