Pri Master HDD Error HELP

I just completed a clean install of XP Pro. The install went fine and everything was working.I connected to the internet and went to Windows Update and began d/l updates. When I got to the first time it told me to reboot I rebooted and it wouldn't boot. It starts booting and the BIOS says:

Auto-Detecting Pri Master...IDE Hard Disc
Auto-Detecting Pri Slave...Not Detected
Auto-Detecting Sec Matster...ATAPI CDROM
Auto-Detecting Sec Slave...Not Detected

This is as it should be. But then it seaches for the boot record and can't find it on either the IDE, the Floppy, or the CDROM

(it should find it on the Hard Drive as I just installed it there!)

Then I get the following error message:

Pri Master HDD Error
Run SETUP
Press F1 To Resume

When I press F1 it says:

RPL-ROM-ADR: 0007 955D 04A8
RPL-ROM-IRQ: 5
RPL-ROM-PIO: CC00

RPL-ROM-FFC: 5

Boot Failure

I tried setting the BIOS back to the CDROM as the 1st boot device and put in the XP install disc.It will find it as a boot device and start running but when it get to set up and asks if I want to install XP or repair it either option I choose it says "windows did not detect any hard disc drives on this computer"

So that's what's going on, My question is:

Is my hard drive kaput?I don't really have a problem getting another hard drive and putting it in (nice time to upgrade since what I have is only a
20GB hard drive) but I don't want to put in a new drive and have the same thing happen. Is there anything else that could be wrong besides a defective hard drive or the IDE cable connecting it to the motherboard?

Sorry if this is a little long I wanted to try to give y'all as much info to go on as I could

 

did u actually check the ide cable and the hdd? i would..that's all i got...it happen to me and i never found a solution cept when i formatted it did come back...