No, formatting just writes to the disk. It destroys any existing data and marks all blocks as "available". If the disk was OK before, it's still OK, just blank.
No, as long and the drive is cooled sufficiently throughout
Yes, but the formating process will overwrite all the exsinting drive contents.
Formatting your hard disk for the PS3 will erase everything on it. If you are adding a hard disk to your PS3 it will prepare the drive for the system.
4kb
yes a hard drive can be damaged by water...
It is possible that dropping a laptop can destroy its hard drive. But it depends on the type of hard drive it used and how hard it drops. It is very possible that if you drop it hard enough to damage its hard drive that you may cause other damage.
No
Hard drives are really good protected, you can damage if you are shaking a hard drive extrimely hard. The travel hard drive series made using special technologies and it's not that easy to damage them. It's unlikey that your hard drive was damaged by airport security machines. You could break if you have dropped it.
PlayStation support network has the information needed to replace and upgrade the harddrive depending on the PS3 model. See related link
You nuke it. XD
No.
Yes, you should be very careful with that. Water will damage most electronic products.