turned on my gateway* laptop & got above message, with "press ctrl, alt, del to restart" & it loops back to same message...is my HDD dead? is there an easy fix or do I have to take to local "TeckGeeks" for repair/recovery?

*model mt6821, OS is vista (I know, gateway+vista, but it's been runnning great for 2 years with no problems, well until now).