Progressive failure, now macbook wont start

Question

Greetings from an American Soldier in Iraq,
I need your advice. Yesterday, I had a movie playing through iDVD. I stopped the movie and pressed the eject button. The spinning ball of death appeared and the machine locked up. Force quit did not work, waiting 15 minutes did nothing. So I pressed and held the power button until it shut off.
The normal startup sound played, then the silver apple logo and spinner came up as expect, but it did nothing else. It stayed like that for over 20 minutes. So I pressed the power again and then brought it up in single user mode.
Errors from fsck were listed and it appeared to be doing nothing- frozen. In hind sight, maybe I should have been more patient, waiting longer than 20 mnutes. Perhaps it was trying to fix the disk. So I turned it off again and decided to try comand - option - P - R. The PRAM reset function as expected, but the OS did not come up.
I decided to boot to the OS X DVD 1. I ran the disk utility. The first time I ran it, I got stuck trying to find Volumes and it never stopped its search. It spun looking for something for about 10 minutes. I cycled the power again and rebooted back to the DVD. This time, and every time since, it searches for about 5 seconds, finds the DVD volume, but never finds the internal hard drive.
I have reset the power management system. no effect.
Now, when I try to reset PRAM, I have to hold the keys for about 1.5 minutes before the computer restarts, but there is no change.
command - option- O - F seems to do nothing on my macbook. is that normal.
when power first comes on, i hear a faint clicking noise that lasts about 20 seconds from the hard drive area of the laptop.
if I do nothing, eventually, the blinking ? folder appears.
I can not reinstal the OS because the internal hard drive is not recognized / seen.
If I reset power and hold option, nothing happens unless the DVD is in the drive, then I can select that volume.
If I press X on power up, nothing happens- eventually go to the blinking folder.
I read the tech article on the ? blinking folder and performed all those steps numerous times.
Question: did I do anything that can be undone so I can get the laptop to recognize the internal hard drive so I can run first aid or reinstall the OS?
WHatever tips / tricks / helps you can provide, I would like to hear. I am experienced with UNIX, so dont hold back- I really need your help.
AIRBORNE!
Dan

Answer 1

Dan, Sorry to hear about your problems. I'm afraid it sounds like your hard drive died. Once a drive starts making audible sounds, the clicking you mentioned, it's usually toast. Maybe your book is still under warranty? Fortunately they're easy to replace. Hopefully you can get one shipped to you over there. I don't think any amount of software or repair tips are going to help.
Thanks for your service. We're very proud of everything you guys do for us.
Good luck and stay safe.
Message was edited by: Mike Sombrio