It could be a software problem. They happen sometimes. Can you boot from a usb to see if the disk is detected? Maybe its not the hardware.
nope....there are key combination on a Mac that you need to use to boot from an external drive and I could not remember them. But I looked them up and will give it a go tomorrow, As to the USB, I would need a USB with the OS on it for a Mac and I don't feel like making one. However I do have a 1TB drive that thinks its a Mac and I will use that tomorrow.
Before I left work the Mac Disk utility was seeing the hard drive, after I reset the PRAM, but the recovery partition is locked for some reason.
This was a problem user to begin with, luckily she left the department, however the head of the unit would like to have the Mac back for future use. If I am unable to get it up and running tomorrow, I will be on the line with Mac Support, this Mac is only about 1 year old