G72 Laptop won't boot up.

This happened a few weeks ago. I went to boot up my computer and started fine. After the Rebublic of Gamers logo came up, the screen went black and said "CD-ROM Boot Priority..No Medium."



Someone I work with said that it seemed likeit was trying to boot from the CD drive, and to go to the setup menu and change the boot priority to HDD.





So I did, and instead of some error message coming up, after the RoG logo there is just a black screen with a blinking underscore.



I told my friend the next day and he told me that he thinks my hard drive had gotten fried, and I can fix it simply by buying a new hard drive. I don't understand how this could have happened. I shut if down when I know I won't be using it for a while. I always keep a cooling fan underneath, and I never overclock even playing games. I've also never made any upgrades to the laptop, it's completely stock. I was hoping someone could tell me what's wrong with it and/or how to fix it. I really want to avoid taking it to Best Buy at all costs.

 

Unfortunately HDD's can fail without prior warnings. From your second photo the BIOS does see the HDD, so go into BIOS, reset to defaults and try to cold boot.
Also try pressing ESC when you power on, then select the HDD if it is one of the options.
If these 2 fail, try booting from windows DVD and do a repair install
Start your computer from a Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive
Do not do a regular install or all data on the drive will be lost.