MacBook is not starting up, flashing ? symbol

I have a 2007 MacBook running OS 10.5.7. It has been working fine for 2 years now. Suddenly, today, it is freezing during startup and flashing a question mark on a folder sign. I know that this means the startup disk cannot be found, but it was working fine until today. I have tried all of the the troubleshooting tips in the Mac manual, short of reinstalling my Mac's software. Why is this suddenly happening, and what should I do?

My cousin took a look at it and arrived at the conclusion that the hard drive has crashed. I am not so sure about this, but he is trying to talk to Apple support and determine the cause of this problem. Thanks for all the tips, and I have tried everything that you guys have suggested, but nothing has worked. I do have AppleCare extended warranty, so hopefully I will have either a fixed MacBook or a new MacBook very soon. I will post up the result of Apple's examination.
Message was edited by: tennisguy6494

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My Macbook will not start up
I've had it about 5 years and around 3 years ago it started to go wrong with random shut downs so i took it into my local apple store and they replaced almost everything internally free under the special warranty i paid for.
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and the macbook dosen't work again.
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sometimes it does the above and then seems to keep rebooting as the optical drive keeps making the start up noise it does on boot about 5-6 times in a row.
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MacBook is not starting up, flashing ? symbol

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