BSOD and Error Messages

[Le Boule]

Win XP Pro SP-3, Dell 8400, Intel Pentium 4 Processor (3GHz), 1GB RAM, 160 GB NCQ Serial ATA Hard Drive, Avast, Win Defender, Spywareblaster.

Merry Christmas to me from the Computer Grinch when I booted up this morning.

Screen message said system recovered from error, it might be temporary or might be serious and to reboot and see if it happened again. I failed to hook up my external hard drive and "back up" last six months of data, pics, etc which was poor decision on my part. I rebooted and everything seemed fine. Read System Log which reported prior error was Service Control Error 7001 due to problem with Windows Media Player followed immediately by NTFS Error 55. Clicked on internet explorer icon, got a BSOD with internal stack error. Since then chkdsk tries to run with each start and it gets to 25% of file verification, flashes error at $130 file 11700 and then stops with following error: C0000218 Unknown Hard Error. Receive same error if I boot in safe mode. Only way to start/stop system is with power button.

I'm betting the hard drive is toast. Any suggestions would be appreciated.