Yet another front drive shaft post.

[galcala]

So a couple of weeks ago I got stranded in the middle of an intersection with the front drive shaft making that clanking noise a lot of you are familiar with. Needless to say I was pretty bummed thinking it was something wrong with the transmission. work has been pretty heavy so I hadnt had the time to do anything till yesterday. I pulled the transfer case off, with much help from several posts on this site (thanks all btw) and sure enough the front drive shaft was toast, which on the one hand dont have to shell out tons of cash for a trans, but there are some concerns. one thing that has me thinking is that If the front quits working for obvious reasons wouldnt you still have power to the rear? would I need to rebuild the transfercase? or can I just get away with replacing the driveshaft. Note: the little metal donut cover on the tcase that goes over the front output shaft is loose.

Thanks.