partitioning step won't recognize hard drive

[standingchair]

Hi Ubuntu forums,

I think I already know the answer to my question, but I was hoping someone could verify.

I want to install Ubuntu on my old laptop.
My old laptop, which I got in a fight with a few months back, and might have been a bit rough on it, I may have even punched it dead center of the keyboard.

Since then, it won't recognize the OS, just shows the boot screen. I'm a little more comfortable with computers now,
so I figured, what the hey!
I'll install Linux, and so I burned the ISO image and booted my laptop. The CD runs as a live session, but when I get to step 4 of partitioning my drive, it won't recognize any drives.

It probably is, and this is most likely a redundant question,
but I'll ask, did my punching my computer break the hard drive, and now I have none?
And I guess I'll throw this one in here, even though I know I could google it, can I install a new hard drive? It's a Gateway MX6448 (but I'm not asking for specifics or anything, just is it hard)?
Thanks for all your help
Jenn

[WikipedianMarlith]

I am having the same problem here. The internal hard drive dosen't show up and I can't partition it.

[Mark Phelps]

Same reply to both of you ...

Open a terminal and enter "sudo fdisk -lu" (That's a lower-case ell, not a one). That will display what Ubuntu thinks are the hard drives and their resident partitions.