flashing question mark on G3--at my wit's end

Hi!

I just inherited a b&w G3 tower, and I get the flashing question mark every time I try to start it up regularly.

It will boot from the OS 9 CD. sometimes the harddrive shows up, sometimes it doesn't.

When it's there, here's what I've already tried:

1. Zapping the PRAM
2. Initializing the hard drive
3. Performing a clean install (it took a few tries)
4. Testing the hard drive for bad blocks--this won't finish due to an error--every single time.

So what do you think--is my hard drive shot?

Thanks so much for your help!

What error are you getting when running a surface scan for bad blocks?

i'm at work now so i can't check, but something like cannot complete scan due to unrecoverable error. if that makes any sense...

Im Pretty Sure Your Hard Drive Is About To Take A Big One...ive Had Similar Situations And Finally The Problem Got Worse And Worse