HT4718 I have nothing on my Mcintosh HD after trying to install Mavericks. I did save a recovery copy of files however this was also lost. All I now have is a file with a question mark with nothing else happening. What should I do?

Apple recently sent a message asking me if I would like to upgrade to Mavericks which was free. I considered installing after saving a copy of my HD to a WD external drive. I proceeded with the instalation however when it was time to reboot the programme the computer displayed a message that it could not process the request due to errors with the hard drive. The computer then requested that i save a copy and the verify disk and repair disk which i followed and the computer would not repair due to an error. At which pioint I did some research and was told by the IMac to push shift when it starts to enter disk utility and repair the Mcintosh HD. I did as asked however the computer would still not install with Mavericks.
So after many attempts of trying to start over, I was prompted to erase the Mcintosh HD and reboot using the saved copy. At this point all data was lost and all that is left on my computer is a file with a question mark with no way of restoring the HD drive. Could anyone help please?

It sounds like your HD may have died.
If you could answer a few questions it may help figure out what you should do next:
What OS did you have on your computer before you tried to upgrade to mavericks?
Did your computer originally come with installer disks?

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