Harddrive not appearing in system profiler or as a startup disc choice

In the last two weeks, (but not every time) I startup my Early 2008 Intel iMac, I either get a grey screen with no mouse pointer or a grey screen with the file folder with the question mark.  When I insert the Snow Leopard DVD Install Disc, and head to startup disk or disk utility the only 'thing' in either dialog box is the DVD disk itself, not my physical internal hard drive.  This occurs whether I hold down Option on the keyboard during startup or not.  I'm having trouble diagnosing whether this is a software issue with my hard drive/startup items or a straight-up impending hard drive failure.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
-Jack

I would recommend running Verify Disk & Repair Disk from the the original OS X disk in Disk Utilities. If the drive sees errors in Repair Disk run that over again until no errors are found.
AHT is not the most comprehensive testing tool, if you want a more robust one you can try the trial version of Disk Warrior and if you want you can purchase a license.
I see you have MS Windows installed using Boot Camp, can you boot into MS Windows?
The other alternative it to take your machine into an AASP or Apple Store for a thorough test.

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