Macbook doesn't get past grey screen when starting up.

[Fardogg]

I've had my macbook for a little over a year now and I've never had a single problem with it until last night.
After a program froze and force quitting wasn't working I shut my laptop down, when I started it back up it was in the grey screen mode for a long time before flashing a dark grey folder symbol with a question mark in the middle. Now, after a few more shutting down and restarting it doesn't even do that anymore, it's just stuck on a grey screen perpetually and won't go any further.
Any ideas on what I can do to fix this without taking it to a repair shop?
Any input is appreciated thanks.

 

[Apple Ink]

Seems like Mac OS X is kaput!

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1440

 

[logana]

Either Hard disk is gone or you have screwed up OSX.

Boot from your install disks and see whether the hard disk is recognized (or more likely not)

 

[abijnk]

Put your instill disc in and see if the computer can see the hard drive using disk utility. If it can, then try and repair the disc from there. If it can't see the hard drive then you need to get a new one. You can go to Apple and they will replace it or you can buy one for it yourself.

Good luck.

 

[alphaod]

It's possible your computer HDD went dead. Like others said, put in your OS X Restore DVD and hold 'C' while booting.

 

[CPD_1]

Just adding another voice to the HDD probably being dead. Mine died a while back and that's exactly the behavior I encountered.