Keeps timing out!

I have the Powerbook G4 Titanium series with MAC OS X Tiger (v10.3.9). Recently I noticed that when I would try and access my hard drive the computer would just time out or hang up. And I would have force quit. Yet I could still access my applications, network drives, internet and items on my desktop. However, the online software updater always timed out as well. I tried to run Disk Utility and it would time out. So yesterday I tried starting the computer with the OS X disc in it hoping to run the disk utility off of the DVD. It started off running correctly, then about half way through I got this error, "Disk Utility lost its connection with the disk managment tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch." Well I did and got the same issue over and over again. Is my hard drive failing? What do I do? Thank you in advance.

Sounds like your hard drive has seen better days, Sir. I would suggest replacing it.