Hi mujjuman,
Warranty isn't so much the problem as retrieving the data. I called Seagate support here in Australia today and they used the ol' "go to a data recovery company" line, which I expected. I tried to see if they are able to at least supply any old drive that they must get back under warranty and offered to buy one - no luck there.
I suppose I just wanted some experienced advice on what could possibly be the matter. Seagate basically said the beeping was a "hardware issue" (thanks) and suggested there was pretty much no hope. Not sure if I'm willing to believe that given some of the success stories here. It seems that it's a jammed motor/platter as far as I figure. I mentioned this thread and had around 30-40 people who have had their Maxtors fail and he replied "40 failures are nothing compared to the number of drives we manfacture.." Fair call, but I'm sure for every story you get on here, there are 40 more untold.