How To Correct Crashed Hard Drive

[PLAZ]

I am not familiar with the proper terminology, but my hard drive crashed. Can someone please tell me the detailed procedure for correcting a crashed hard drive and reinstalling windows? I realize that I will lose everything on the hard drive. I have XP Home operating system.

[sgtspector]

The first thing to do is download the hdd manufacturers diagnostics and check to see if the drive is defective.

[glc]

Describe "crashed" please. Exactly what are the symptoms?