MIA hard drive(s)

First question:
I was working in iDVD archiving a project at the end of the year, and trying to check the disk permissions in Disk Utility at the same time (which I now realize was my first mistake). The processes were both hung so I shut the computer down manually.
On restarting, I received the ? mark startup folder. When I started up from the restore CD, I went to Disk Utility but the Hard Drive was MIA. It was not there. The DVD drive and the external hard drive showed up. As advised in article 58042 (don't know how to make that a link), and other posts, I then tried:
...resetting the PRAM
...running a Hardware Test (which found no errors)
What's next? Would Disk Warrior be of any use here? I don't have it, but would it be worth buying? We're a small school yearbook, and don't have much of a budget. Really no budget.
Is the hard drive dead? Are all our photos and movies and dvd projects gone? Some were backed up to the external HD, but not all. If I try to reinstall OSX will it find and mount the hard drive? If it does, will all the files be gone?
Second question: There is another (Maxtor 190GB) internal drive installed which shows up (greyed out) in disk utility. How do I get this drive mounted and working? I inherited the yearbook position and computer, and don't know how they had it set up beforehand. Before my issues with #1 above, this drive had shown up in disk utility but never on the desktop. Any chance it was set up to back up files from the original 160GB HD which is now MIA? If so, How can I get to it? If not, what good is it sitting in there?
Thanks in advance.
Power Mac G5   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   154GB memory, 2GB RAM, iMovie 4.0.1

Before you touch or work with or use that system in anyway, which could make it harder to fix or recover, you need to have Data Rescue II (demo will let you scan and see if it helps); a backup drive to recover to; a new replacement drive probably.
Actually a well-oiled machine should be able to do 10 things at once - backup, repair permissions, even run Disk Warrior on another drive or volume; and still be able to run TechTool Pro 4.5 on a 3rd drive while SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner is working.
The best course of action when you began would have been to backup; repair; erase and restore; or even do a full fresh install of the system and applications. Take enough time to do a full overhaul and maintenance.
Even if Disk Warrior can't fix it this time, it can prevent it from happening again, when used regularly as part of backups and weekly maintenance.
With 2-3 backup sets, always have one drive handy for updating your backups, but one that is always off-line at any time as well.
You could pull the drive, connect it up via FireWire or USB adapter kit (OWC www.macsales.com has an inexpensive USB interface for SATA drives even).
There is a $250 "DiscJockey" that is a system-less sector copy device that will clone to a 2nd drive.
I'd look into a couple Maxtor MaxLine III 300GB $68, also from OWC to get you up and running.

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    5. Then I crossed my fingers and restarted iTunes. It took awhile to start and said it was updating my library files. Now I have back most or all of my playlists and ratings.
    If problems develop, I will probably wipe out iTunes library and use Anapod to move everything from my iPod into a folder and tell iTunes to import that folder. That approach might avoid the dups that Anapod makes when restoring playlists to iTunes.
    So my message is keep your actual songs backed up somewhere (such as DVD's and anotehr hard drive) and keep a duplicate copy of your library files somewhere not on your hard drive. With these items you should be able to restore iTunes library to its former status.
    Sorry for the length of this message. Hope it helps someone.

    The simple version of above:
    iTunes Files to Backup (anytime you make additions or changes to the Music or Library that you want to retain)
    1) All music files in their current folder structure (usually located in and under the ‘iTunes Music’ folder)
    2) The Library database file: ‘iTunes Library.itl’ located in the ‘iTunes’ folder
    3) The Library XML file: ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ located in the ‘iTunes’ folder
    4) Any XML playlist files created for Playlist retention
    5) The two iTunes.pref files (optional)
    -- C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes.pref
    -- C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer Inc\iTunes.pref
    6) The XML file of Ratings, Play Counts and Last Played attributes saved from the main Library and created by Otto’s SaveRatings script (also optional, but recommended):
    “Download this: http://ottodestruct.com/itunes/SaveRatings.zip . It's a program, just run it like any other program. Run it on the machine where you're copying the info from BEFORE you move the files to the new machine. Click the "Save Ratings" button and it'll create a ratings.xml file. Now when you move the files, move the program and this file as well. Then after you make your new iTunes library, run it again and click the "Restore Ratings" button. Voila, all your information is back in the Library. Well, most of it anyway, it's not perfect. It'll tell you what songs it couldn't figure out though, and there's usually not very many.”

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