Macbook Pro: Disk Utility doesn't see my HD

Hi guys,
My Macbook Pro has been running slower lately, but I honestly didn't think too much about it...until today. It's just over a year old, running Mac OS X, and I mostly use Safari as my browser, but I have to use Firefox for my online classes. Today, Firefox froze up and quit responding, so I Force Quit it. A few minutes after this, Safari did the same thing, and then it was my entire desktop. Nothing was responding; I had to shut down by pushing the power button.
And then, it wouldn't turn back on. The chime sounded, the apple appeared, and the spinning circle underneath it. And it spun, and spun...until a generic "stop" symbol replaced the apple logo. I immediately shut it back down and did an online search. I followed every fix recommended for this issue. I tried reseting the PRAM, and then the SMC, and still the same thing happened. I tried to boot in Safe Mode, and if seemed to be working...right up until an hour passed and nothing new was happening. I shut it down again, and tried booting from the install disc of Snow Leopard. That worked, and I tried to do Disk Utility with the intention of following the online apple directive of running first aid on my HD. Except Disk Utility doesn't see my HD, only the boot disc and DVD drive. I'm guessing this is a bad sign. I tried calling Apple Care, but they are closed right now. I will call them in the morning, but in the meantime, I thought I'd see if anyone here had any advice I haven't already tried. Sadly, I haven't run Time Machine in...months. I'll end up losing a lot of stuff because I just didn't do that if my HD is toast.
Any suggestions?

Sure seems to be a failed(ing) hard drive. If you happen to get it into safe mode again, the ONLY thing you should immediately do is copy off your Home folder to an external USB disk, SD card, something. Then just get it to an Apple store for check.
Try to copy your files off first and don't try anything else to get at that disk until you copy your home folder. If the disk is failing and you're trying to do things to it you'll loose the chance to get that data.

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