Here Is The Deal!

Through Steam They are doing a free 4 day trial or something of the Game The Ship (The ship is actually pretty fun) I loaded the game, loaded a map but the map stoped loading... So I ctrl+Alt+Deleted it and proceeded to close out of the game, computer was STILL FROZEN so I closed out of steam then explorer. When explorer came BACK it gave me a weird message something like "i+exlporer==l;..." etc...Anyway I said ok then the system locked up beeped a few times. (at this point I was like "oh forget it!") I manually rebooted or as some would say a hard reboot. Now it wont detect the harddrive when booting back up. I have tryed booting in safemode, I have tryed last known config. I have even tryed repairing using winxp CD. all I get is "Harddrive not detected".

I am not about to loose years and years of date/work/everything I have done on computers for aslong as I have known.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

EDIT:
I have Windows XP Home I belive.ah yes, the possible outcome while playing Russian-Roulette(Sometimes known as Hard Shutdowns ). This might be a long shot but try actually going into your computer physically detach the HDD, re-attach it and make sure all the connections are nice and snug and then try to boot up and see what happens. That might fix the problem but im not 100% sure... ive seen crazier things fix even weirder problems lolI am glad you understand what i am talking about. I have already opened it up and made sure all the cords are plugged in and "snug". D=No need for help. omg I got it working Thanks for anyone who did take the time to read it and tryed to help.

My ideas: Restart more then once, Keep trying last known config more then once.

Thank you HDL_CinC_Dragon for your help.I would download and run a hard drive fitness test
 from the manufaturer of the hard drive. :-?