Can't turn on my MacBook Air. Grey screen shows but instead of Apple logo a folder with a "?" appears. Help

Hello,
As I was using my laptop it suddenly died on me. I tried turning it on several times but I couldn't get passed the grey screen with the Apple logo on it and a loading bar underneath. At this time I could access the Recovery Disc Assistant or the Mac OS X utilities (not sure what it is called). I partintioned the Hard Drive into one partition and ran a disc check. Everything was OK so i rebooted the laptop. The grey screen showed up, but this time instead of getting an Apple logo i got a blinking folder with a question mark on it. I could no longer access the Recovery Disc Assistant and I'm stuck. What really ***** is that I have IB exams tomorrow and some of my crucial notes are on this laptop... Please help.

If you partitioned the drive, you deleted all the data on it. Restore from your most recent backup.

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