Startup disk, Macintosh HD not found

[Shan32]

My MBP froze as I was typing a final paper, so I proceeded to force restart (holding down the power button). Ever since, I've been getting the flashing folder and question mark on startup. I've tried booting in Internet Recovery Mode and Single User Mode. Macintosh HD is not showing in Disk Utility and diskutil list does not return any core storage volumes in Terminal. I've tried reinstalling my OS X from an external recovery HD (flash drive) but when I get to the screen to select the disk on which to install Mavericks, my Recovery HD is locked. Running fsck, I found there was an error on my Recovery HD but that was repaired and I rebooted. I've also reset NVRAM with Command+Option+P+R.

2013 MBP 13" w/ OS X Mountain Lion preinstalled; upgraded to Mavericks.
Unfortunately, I just came out of warranty, and I find it hard to accept that my 14 month old hard drive is irreparable. All help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ Unfortunately, I just came out of warranty, and I find it hard to accept that my 14 month old hard drive is irreparable. All help is greatly appreciated! ]]

If you are "just out of warranty", I suggest you take it to the nearest Apple Store and ask them to have a look. No guarantees, but if you're "that close" to the end of the warranty, they might just offer you a replacement HDD.

Is the MBPro in question a retina model (i.e., blade-based drive) or is it a "traditional" MacBook (with user-replaceable drive and RAM)?

If it's the latter, might be time to start thinking about installing an SSD into it. The process is as easy as it gets (provided you use THE RIGHT TOOLS), and a 240gb SSD can be had in the $100 or less price range if you shop carefully.

Do you have a backup?

 

[Shan32]

My MBP is not a retina display model. I think I have a Time Machine Backup from about 10 months ago but I don't know if that is even useful. It doesn't load in the option to Restore from Time Machine when I try to load in internet recovery or safe mode. Since I ran AHT and no trouble was found do you think I really need an SSD?

BTW, I checked and it doesn't look like Apple will accept that my Pro came out of warranty this August. I'm also out of the country (USA) until January so I don't even have the option to go in store until I return.
Thanks for taking the time to help!

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ I'm also out of the country (USA) until January so I don't even have the option to go in store until I return. ]]

I realize the advice I'm about to offer cannot help you in your present situation, and don't want to rub salt into the wound, but...

.... the NEXT time you go "out of country" for an extended time, I would advise you to take along an external drive that has a bootable copy of the Mac OS on it (as well as the internal drive).

It could be a "clone" of the internal drive created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

If you had one of these, you could boot from it in an emergency such as the one you're having now, and all your stuff would still be there, up and running (even though you were "running" from an externally-connected drive).