Interpreting hard drive sounds

[isasir]

The hard drive on my friend's computer, when booting up, makes the high pitched spinning sound, and then after a few seconds makes the lower pitched sound like the hard drive has stopped. This is followed by the error:

"Reboot and Select proper boot device or insert boot media in slected boot device"

Google searches for that error message yield a wide array of reasons. I'm trying to determine if due to the sound of the HD, that the HD is definitely the problem, or if I should try out all the other potential options. Nothing new hardware-wise has been added to the PC AFAIK.

 

[Matthias99]

Either the BIOS can't read the hard drive (which could be because of the HDD, cable, or motherboard), or the OS on there is damaged. Or you're trying to boot off a hard disk that doesn't have an OS installed on it.