When I turn on my Laptop I get a message on the screen that says it's trying to repair bad sectors. I've been told to turn off the PC and not turn it back on. I've done that..But with that error does it mean that my hard drive has gone bad or what?
Definitely not a sign to ignore - it does mean that problems have occured with your hard drive. It could be occuring because your laptop was moved or jarred while writing to disk and created bad sectors. The operating system *may* be able to isolate them and it can continue operating. It could also mean that the disk is failing (especially if the number of bad sectors is continuing to increase) and could become unusable at any time. While you are still able to boot the PC and use it, NOW is the time to make sure any critical data is backed up.
Even though it won't boot, there is the possibility that the drive could be placed in an external enclosure and accessed by another computer - that would give you the ability to recover data off of it. At this point, you probably need to find a good service tech to take a look at it for you. ddrdan on here is the go to guy for laptops - you might want to send him a PM to get his evaluation.
Find out which hard drive manufacturer your drive is made by. Use the TAG # or model # at your laptop manufacturer web site to find the spec's on your PC. This will tell you who made the drive. Then go to that hard drive site and download their hard drive diagnostic software. It runs at boot up from a CD or an A drive. Dell PC's have an "F12" key push at boot to do a diagnostic automatically.
