Windows 7 Disk I/O Error

I'm having a huge problem with my laptop. Yesterday while playing a video file, Windows Media Player became unresponsive for a good 10-15 minutes. When it came to and I was able to click the close program option. It closed and everything seemed fine. I then decided to restart the system but it failed to start. After staying on the "Starting Windows" screen for a good while it went to the black screen with the Start Up Repair or Start Normally option. I chose the Start Up Repair. It did its thing but it said it wasn't able to automatically repair the system. I clicked "Finish" and it shut down. I tried booting it up this morning and got a black screen saying "Disk I/O Error. Replace disk and press a key." I then shut it down and restarted it and got into the boot options. I ran the diagnostics hoping that it would help. After running for a while I stepped away from the computer for a couple minutes and came back to it shut off. I turned it on again, got the Start Up Repair option which I chose. It failed to repair again. I tried other system recovery options available but all of them failed/ gave an error message when I clicked on it. I tried executing the chkdsk /f /r command and it said "Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected". I tried Start Up Repair again which failed. Said the root cause was " A hard disk could not be found. If hard disk is installed, it is not responding."

Is my only option now is to get a new hard drive? I have a fairly recent backup so I'm not that concerned with retrieving my files. I just need my Quickbooks program for work.

Any help would be appreciated!