I've got a Dell, and I've had a Toshiba in the past. In my experince, Dell's service is great. If there's an issue, they'll come to fix or collect your laptop once it's still within the warranty period.
The same was not the case with Toshiba - several times I had to package it up and send it off to the UK.
On the off-chance that it's not actually a failed HDD try changing the HDD/IDE (SATA/AHCI to ATA) setting in the BIOS. Although it doesn't really make sense this, ultimately, worked for me with a dodo Toshiba that crossed my path which wouldn't even boot on an Ubuntu Live CD.. . currently have a 15 month old toshiba with a dead hard drive.
+2 on Toshiba. I had heard great reports on Toshiba laptops, and as I work with computers I spent over €900 on a new one a couple of years ago (500GB, Core I7 etc), only to discover that there is a known fault where the fan overheats because there isn't enough room for the dust to escape. By the time the machine started to shut down, it was out of Toshiba warranty and my extended warranty with PC World required them to send it over to England (BEWARE, they don't fix it in Ireland) for up to 5 weeks.
+1 for the issues with Toshiba - I buy a lot of systems for friends and family and currently have a 15 month old toshiba with a dead hard drive. As its out of warranty they have advised to just go buy and fit a hard drive as the most cost effective option which i am ok with though a little annoyed that the drive failed so early in its life. .
I wouldn't be blinkered by the warranty either and I'd expect a HDD to last for min. 5 years.If the HDD has died 15 months after you bought it, and as long as you didn't cause the damage, then you have rights to a repair, replacement or refund.