I cant even reinstall os x after a question mark folder showed up on my mac.

I opened my macbook pro this moring and this question mark folder came up. I restarted it and it came back normally and was working just fine. I came home and the same problem occured, Ive tried to shut it down and press option key on my keyboard. Os x utilities popped up and it seemed like theres nothing for the system to repair so I moved on to restore from time machine which also didnt work. I finally decided to reinstall os x mountain lion knowing that all my files will probably be gone. but then there was no disk I could select for the new installation. What's happening? Is there any ways I could fix this problem?