Click of Death

My iPod died recently. I've diagnosed it having, what google refers to as, "the click of death". In a nut shell, the hard drive died. After surfing the web to find some options, I learned that many iPod owners have had luck in reviving their iPod by whacking or dropping it. I was not so lucky. My iPod has truly gone to a better place. The large Apple Store in the sky. To affirm that it is in fact dead, every time I attempt to turn it on I see the following image accompanying the clicking sound:
The good news is that I purchased it from Best Buy two years ago with a service plan that covers it through March of 2009. With any luck, they will replace my iPod with a current model. If not, I'll need to wait until my next pay check to buy a new one. Either way, I'm in need of replacing it because I'm traveling at least three time between now and the end of July and without the ability to listen to music on the plane, I might go insane.

I would be remiss to note that when I purchased in two years ago, I paid $300 for 30 GB of storage space. At the time, that was the second largest iPod available. The largest was 60 GB and cost about $400. The most comparable model that I can get today is 80 GB for $240. That's right folks, I could pay $60 less for nearly three times the storage capacity. You really have to admire the evolution of technology.
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UPDATE: (May 10, 2008. 7:30pm) After bringing my iPod to Best Buy and consulting "The Geek Squad", I was offered two options:

1. Send my iPod out to be repaired.
2. Receive a new refurbished iPod.
   

I asked which would get me a working iPod the fastest and I was told that it would take two weeks to get a refurbished one while it would take "much longer" to have mine repaired. The way I look at it, the hard drive is shot. Essentially it would come back refurbished anyways except for the outside case. Feeling no emotional attachment to the outside shell of my current iPod, I opted for option two. These next fourteen days are going to be very quiet...