Hard Drive Gone!?

So I left my computer on when I went out somewhere earlier today. It put the screen to sleep, like it usually does. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but when I got back, I clicked the command button on the keyboard, which is what I am in the habit of pressing to wake it up from sleep. The screen flashed for a second like normal, but then the screen stayed dark. I clicked a couple other buttons and tried to move the mouse...all to no avail. So, I clicked to turn off the computer, which resulted in the wallpaper popping up, but with nothing on top (so nothing on my desktop...no dock...no top bar...nothing...). So I held the power button to turn it off. When I tried to turn in back on, it just had a white screen forever, so I held the button to turn it off.
I waited a couple mins to let it cool down, then I tried turning it on again. Same problem. On the 4th try, instead of just being a white screen after a while, it showed an icon of a folder with a question mark in it. This icon was flashing. This seems bad to me...
So, I tried using the Leopard install disk to do a disk repair, but disk utility only recognized the Leopard disk. It did not recognize any hard drive. This trend continued. My friend hooked my mac up to his via firewire to see if he could access it, and he could only access the Leopard disk through my computer. Just for me to use in the meantime, he installed Leopard on an external hard drive, and I am running that just so I can study for my exams (of course...great timing). This version of Leopard running on my computer still doesn't recognize my internal hard drive.
So, I don't know what to do...is my hard drive dead? Nothing will recognize it. If it is dead, what are my options? I have most things backed up, but I don't have my pictures from my three most recent trips backed up, and I really don't wanna lose those. I know it is difficult to actually wipe clean a hard drive, so is there any way (if it is dead) that I could obtain these files (or someone could get them out for me)? If the drive is dead, how much does it cost to get a new internal hard drive. I heard it's not too expensive as far as computer parts go. My Macbook is almost 3 years old now.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

You can try the Apple Hardware Test by holding down the D key while starting up with in install disk. If it still can’t find the disk, you should take it to an Apple store to check it.
Depending on the specs of a new internal drive, they are commonly found for US$100 to $200, as I recall.

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We usually try to give folks who come here simplified advice that keeps them comfortable troubleshooting and repairing their Macs and won;t raise other issues for them. Command line tools don't usually fall into the simplified category and fsck for Mac OS X Tiger is not recommended by Apple, except as a last resort. It is known to cause other issues.
From the Apple Knowledge Base article that Dale has linked below;
Note: If you're using Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you should use Disk Utility instead of fsck, whenever possible.
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Message was edited by: eww

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Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
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Dave Changizi wrote:
Fellows,
Please don't read my e-mail with your emotions. I have nothing against Apple other than my disappointment in this particular service that I received. I can make a long list of all the good things that Apple has brought in this world.
My point is this: whether Apple or a PC, when you buy a brand new computer, the manufacturer should not only replace the failed part (in my case it did, as is the norm in the industry), but TRY to retrieve the lost file(s), when is applicable, free of charge, during the warrantee period.
Does it make sense? I find this a very reasonable request/demand. Remember that, according to Apple representative, an outside source was potentially able to retrieve my files.
As a customer, I want to have a better service, especially when I pay more for the promised quality.
If we customers were happy with what is offered/or not, then we would have still worked 70 hours per week, our cars didn't a seatbelt, and ...
I hope this helps to clear my argument.
Cheers,
I understand where you are coming from, however, there is nothing that they can do. If the drive has been damaged and does not work, then there isn't anything that they can do. When those other places charge the prices that they do, it's to pay for them having to physically remove the platters from the drive that you currently had, and keeping every tiny spec of dust off them as a spec of dust could render the platter useless if it gets caught between the heads and the platters. This being said, they would then have to take those platters and place them in a new drive basically. Most people understand that there is nothing that can be done when something like this happens, they have external drives and they backup all their data. I have mine backed up on two seperate drives and in a remote location away from everything here. Let's put it like this, say you bought a house, and then you put a lot of your memories and things and whatnot into your house, say pictures, papers, things like that. Now your house burns down, would you expect the people that built your house be responsible and demand that they somehow get your pictures and things like that back from your house that were burned up? It's kind of asking the same thing that you would get if you were to demand that they somehow magically make your drive start working and get the information off it.

Hard Drive Gone!?

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