Laptop hardrive, unknown error PLEASE HELP

[ESPplayer7]

Im on my work laptop and the hard drive is messed up. I can get the computer to start but the harddrive now makes a noise like a computer fan does almost like its trying to load something but its stuck. What could possibly be the problem? Can i open the laptop up to try and fix it myself? It is a dell laptop with a pentium 4

BTW it can enter windows but when i click on anything i get the unknown hard error

[bassman]

Hello ESPplayer,
Sounds to me like the HDD has left the building. The only way to repair this is to replace the HDD. You might be able to pull it from the laptop and put it on as a slave on another computer to recover your documents. I went through this exact problem a while back and was able to save everything.

A Dell with a P4 is a fairly new machine. You should check on your warrenty before opening the case or replacing anything.

Good luck
Frank