Question-Mark Folder Persistence

Hello folks,
so I turned on my 2006 MacBook Pro yesterday, and it made the startup chime, then went to a gray screen with a Folder and a Question Mark flashing continuously. I looked up the problem online, and it said to hold down the shift key while starting up. I did this, still the question-mark folder. Then it said to reset the PRAM. I tried this. Still, the "?" Folder. Then I tried restarting while holding down the Option key. This at least got me somewhere - to a blank gray screen and an arrow. So I could move the arrow around with the mouse, but absolutely nothing else. Just a blank gray screen. This is as far as I've gotten. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thank you,
Jacob

The question mark means no boot drive. In other words, your hard drive is missing in action. It could have failed. Boot the machine with your install recovery DVD and use Disk Utility from the DVD to verify the hard drive.