Is my HD completely dead or can it be saved?

Hi everyone,
I have a MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid-2010) running OS X Mavericks 10.9 and it seems the HD has died. I'd be incredibly grateful if anyone could offer me some help and advice.
I was using my MacBook as usual this morning. I had a few work documents open and was checking my email in Safari. Safari crashed (not entirely unusual but much less common since I updated to Mavericks). I then noticed that the cursor had disappeared and none of the keyboard or trackpad gestures were working. I held down the power button and did a hard shutdown. I left it for about a minute and powered it back up. After about 30 seconds, the Apple logo was replaced by a stop/prohibited sign and it was clear It wasn't going to startup. I tried it a few more times before resigning myself to that fact that something was clearly wrong.
I Googled it and found a lot of other people who had experienced the same issue and that it means the OS X installation has become corrupt or the HD has died. I tried the resolutions suggested on the Apple Support page (http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570). These are the results of what I tried, in case it provides any further useful information:
Disconnect, test peripheral devices and network cables
I didn't have any devices or cables connected so this wasn't really applicable.
Perform a Safe Boot
This didn't work so I tried a Safe Boot with progress. This produced a terminal-like display which said "Still waiting for root device" at the bottom and the stop/prohibited sign appeared in the middle of the screen.
Reset the NVRAM/PRAM
I was able to reset the NVRAM (or at least it behaved as described in the support instructions) but it then displayed the stop/prohibited sign when I tried to boot up afterwards.
Check your cables and power source
It's a MacBook and it was nearly fully charged so this wasn't applicable.
Remove third-party RAM and internal hardware
I haven't modified the machine at all since I bought it.
Start from your Mac OSX Install disc; use Disk Utility
This was actually the first thing I tried but it wouldn't boot from the DVD. I then tried the other methods above. In desperation, I tried booting from the DVD again and this time it seemed to bring something up. It brings me to a Mac OS X Snow Leopard installation. I opened Disk Utility and the only disk that it displays is the DVD drive with the install disc in it. My MacBook's HD running OS X Mavericks is nowhere to be seen.
Is my HD well and truly dead? Is there anything else I can try or will I need to take this into an Apple Store? If I bring it to Apple, will they be able to retrieve anything from the HD (foolishly, it's been a while since I backed up)? I'd really appreciate any help with this.
Many thanks,
Daniel

OK... there may be a little hope. If you got in once and now can't, it could be a thermal problem. When the drive has this, it fails when it gets hot. I'll tell you what I would do at this point.
1. Just shut it down for now. More heat won't help anything.
2. Order an external 2.5 enclosure and buy a new hard drive. This would be a good time to upgrade to an SSD if you've thought about it. I have no idea what size your current drive is. If you need some help selecting one, let me know. Here's the enclosure.
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-TB4P/dp/B005EIGUD4/ ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1393429730&sr=8-3&keywords=2.5+enclosure
3. Once you have the new drive and enclosure, you're going to replace the old drive with the new one. You need a Torx T6 and a Phillips 00 screwdriver for this. It's pretty simple.
4. In this case, you'll have to install Snow Leopard from the original disks then go through the upgrade process to get back to Mavericks.
5. Put the old hard drive in the enclosure and see if you can read it. If so, copy whatever you need off of it immediately.

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Is my HD completely dead or can it be saved?

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