If you are sure hard drive is gone bad, buy one and replace it. I have done it for my laptop before by myself (I am not IT person). You have to figure out what type of hard drive you need. Just do some search. They are not that expensive as you have mentioned. You can get descent one in <$100. Replacing is not a big deal at all. Anyone can do. Look some youtube videos that tell you step by step procedure.

Because I am student, Univ has a IT dept they helped me to retrieve data from damaged harddrive. Even I went to staples and that guy was ready to help me to retrieve data. 

If you don't want to do it by yourself, take your laptop to one of the stores like staples, buy one from them and they will replace and retrieve your data from old one. They will probably charge just for the new hard drive.