Macbook Pro 15" doesn't recognize my internal hard drive

[picassomac]

I replaced my Macbook Pro 15", 1st gen, 80g internal hard drive with a
500g samsung internal hard drive. I have been using it successfully for over six months.

In the past three days I have been getting the spinwheel more and more often to run basic programs, until today when I can't even do that.

At this moment the drive is unrecognizable, and I can't even boot the computer.

When I power up, the blinking folder and question mark appears.

When the internal disk was still visible, I used disk utility from my OSX installation disk and repaired permissions.
To no avail.

Now the disk is not even visible!

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Lyshen]

Put your ear up to where the hard drive is when you turn it on. Can you hear it spin up or any such noise at all?

Sounds like the hard drive may have failed though.

Hopefully you used time machine to make a backup of your drive.