Loss of Partition Tables a Fatal Blow to HD?

Hiya,

I'm sticking this in Hard Drive issues because I /think/ that's where the problem lies.

What I've got:
Acer Aspire One, the 8.9" old school. He's old. Maybe dying.
8 gig SSD
Running jolicloud 1.1.

What happened:
I started up one day and got the mxe-whatever error. no bootable device, etc. I hadn't done any system changes, I hadn't dropped it. I had just been on a plane, but this little dude has been on several planes with me with no ill-effects, AND the first time I started up after the plane ride, it started up just fine.

What I've done:
I made a USB key to start a live session in jolicloud. I got to a term and found evidence that my hard drive still existed, but had lost its partition tables. So I ran testdisk to fix, which didn't work, then photorec to get some stuff off of it, which worked. Now I'm in the process of trying to reformat and reinstall jolicloud. I get these errors:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/ ... 180048.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/ ... 180108.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/ ... 180525.jpg
and finally: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/ ... 094302.jpg

So, confirmation that this drive is D.E.D. dead? Or resurrectable? and if it's dead, I want to replace the hard drive with another 8 gig ssd, but I don't know anything about the sizing, etc. This Acer is my first and only laptop and I've never looked inside it. I've tinkered with my desktop - Okay, okay, I've frankensteined my desktop, but it's bigger and I'm nervous about the tiny parts of a laptop or buying the wrong replacement hard drive.

Any help?