[Katchoo]

Atrocities put it right: Damn.

Are you sure your Hard Drive is dead? As long as it doesn't give you any detection errors during startup then the information on the Drive may still be recoverable (even if Windows is what crapped out). Popping the Drive into another computer (as a 2nd Drive) may allow you to retrieve information off the drive before a format.

If the Drive itself is making grinding noises, there's a chance it can be recovered. There's usually a speciallized computer store or 2 in every city that can make physical repairs to Hard Drives to recover data.