Please save my Macbook

My wife was using my macbook today while i was out. I came home to find the macbook hung up on a webpage. The beachball was spinning, no cursor on the screen, no keys were working and trackpad wasn't working. I tried everything to get off that website, finlly I had to shut-down using command-power button for 5 seconds.Macbook shut down and when I restarted it, I got a folder with a question mark on it. I inserted my OSX disk and restarted. t came up to mac OSX installation screen. I tried re-installing mac OSX but when i got to the "select destination drive" screen, there was no drive to select. Is my hard-drive dead? Is there any way i can re-format the drive maybe and then re-install? Any tips or tricks on how to get mac OSX re-installed on my macbook? I am still under Applecare, but the nearest Apple store is over an hour away, so to drive up there, drop it off, then drive back to pick it up nother day isn't xactly easy, so any home remedies, tips, tricks, Macgyverisms(for us old enough to remember him), anything would be most helpful. Or as I am guessing, I may just be up a creek and need a new hard-drive.

The question mark at startup means the Mac can't find a valid system from which to start from. In your case,I would guess it means something was corrupted in your system and it is looking for the startup volume elsewhere than on the internal hard drive. A few things to try (re-installing OS X is rarely needed, there are other things to try first).

If you have DiskWarrior now would be the time to use it, it does wonders in times of crisis like these.

Have you tried starting up holding down the Option key? This will force the Mac to look everywhere for the startup volume.

You could also try Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.

Starting up in Safe Mode cleans out some of the doohdooh in the system.

Insert the DVD install disk in your optical drive and boot from it, holding down the C key and run Apple's Disk Utility on your hard drive.

Resetting MacBook and MacBook Pro System Management Controller (SMC).

To rule out a hardware problem, you could try booting off of your first DVD install disk, holding down the D key and run the Hardware Test in Extended Mode.

Nothing worked. I went to disk utility on the install screen and tried to verify my hd, it said no packages to verify. Now I cant figure out how to eject my osx install disk either. Ran the hardward test off the osx install disk, it came up, no trouble found, but under the hardware profile my hd wasn't listed, un;ess i missed it.

Restart by holding down the mouse button ought to eject the CD/DVD.

Hardware test came up no problems, but also didn't list harddrive in the hardware profile. Thanks foe the help getting the disk out, thats one good thing. i do believe my harddrive is fried.

Is your MacBook still under warranty?

If so, no need to keep on trying to fix this if you can't fix it with diagnostic tools, call Apple Care, they'll walk you through a couple of things to try (that you probably just tried since) and then they'll tell you to take it in for repair: at least there will be a record of the malfunction somewhere.