The hard disk is not all broken if you were able to boot into 10.8 Recovery HD using command r at the boot time because it resides on the physical disk in a hidden partition.
If you used a 10.6 disk, then yes Disk Utility can't repair a 10.8 drive. Don't use a 10.6 disk to repair, only to totally erase the entire drive to reinstall 10.6.
If you command option r booted into Internet Recovery (globe appeared) then used Disk Utility and on the left side there was nothing or only your optical drive, then yes your internal drive or something else hardware related is possibly broken. Take it in for service.
If you command option r booted into Internet Recovery (globe appeared) then used Disk Utility and on the left side there was only your internal drive (or + optical drive), (no Macintosh HD partition) then select it and click Erase with middle security option and apply, then head to Partition: 1 and Option: GUID, Format OS X extended journaled.
If you command r booted and on the left side if you selected the internal boot drive you have made a error, select the Macintosh HD partiton and Erase > middle security selection (wait) then quit and reinstall OS X into that partition.
Since your machine is still under a 1 year warranty, if your boot drive is really dead, then take it in, however do buy AppleCare for another 2 years of covereage. Apple is going to simply replace the drive and you will lose your data.
If you need to do data recovery, it's possible to install OS X on a external drive, boot from it and attempt to access the internal drive provided it's still working.
Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
My computer is not working, is my personal data lost?
Local PC/Mac repair shops do data recovery, however if they touch the internal drive physically (like removing it) then that will violate your warranty/AppleCare. So you will have to be explicit in that regard.
If you have backups of your data then no worries.
Most commonly used backup methods