Upon start up computer says HDD is not found,

[bestplayer]

As the title states, I get the following error message upon start up. That message is the one i posted in the title. I want to know if this is start of a failing HDD or something else, like maybe a mobo faliure , as i heard that sometimes this is what it could be also. The computer would also fail to even show a window in the beging, so as i can tell this is problily not good. I did however restart it a second time and that is when the error message occured, follwed by a thrid restart witch finally brought me to windows. I am not really looking for a solution, althought one would be nice , but instead a flat answer to tell me if these componets are failing or not or if it's something else. Thnaks for your help and much apperciated.

One more thing, the computer is a dell inspirion 1100 laptop

 

[jsc]

I'd back up the hard drive and replace it as quickly as possible.