ATTN. MAC USERS/KNOW-IT-ALLS

I know I saw you out there once. I need help. I have a brand new 30 day old powerbook, it is running Mac OSX 10.2.6.

The following is copy-pasted from y!m:

meublechat: basically my computer just like stopped during the chat
maykashara: and you cant restart it?
meublechat: it tried to load a webpage and then like sat there not working but not frozen
meublechat: just not doing anything but spinning the little spinny thing that goes when its doing something.
maykashara: i fucking hate that thing
meublechat: and then i tried to force quit but it wouldnt let me do that
meublechat: so then i tried restarting and it wouldnt fucking do that either
meublechat: so then i unplugged it and pulled the battery
meublechat: and now when I tried to start it it couldnt find a disk to start up from (NOT FUCKING GOOD)
meublechat: so i put in the actual startup/system install disk and had it boot from that and it WOULDNT START FROM THE STARTUP DISK
meublechat: at which point I go "OHMYGODMYWORLDISCRASHINGDOWN"
meublechat: at which point my world does, in fact, come crashing down
meublechat: so then i sit down and let it sleep a bit and tried restarting
meublechat: and it started from the startup disk but not really cause it only wants to let be reinstall my system which i dont fucking want to do
meublechat: and its labor day and im leaving on fucking thursday and WHAT THE HOLY JESUSFUCK DO I DO??? OH MY GOD MY LLIFE IS ENDING
maykashara: whered you get your computer from?
meublechat: macconnection.com
meublechat: im fucked i called my friend the computer tech
meublechat: he says i probably need a new hard drive
maykashara: can you save your data
meublechat: probably not if i have to replace it
maykashara: oh god

So ok here's the deal. I have tried restarting and I get a grey screen, I try restarting from the disk and the apple sign comes up and the dial spins but it won't boot. I do not know what to do. Does anyone have any advice on this matter?