I bought my Dell laptop from Costco 1 year ago and the hard drive is dead. Only after having it for one year! It's covered for the 2 year warranty, so should I send it in or is it pointless to do?
you pay (indirectly) for the warranty, why would you not use it?
they won't care about your data, simply replace the drive and reload Windows image with factory bloatware.
do you have a backup?
Hypothetical questions, if the drive is dead depending on why the drive is dead some/all data may or may not savable. Data recovery is a VERY expensive service and with no guarantees of success.
When you get your new hard drive installed make regular system images and you will NEVER experience ANY data loss again, sorry but that is how it is.