Can a dead MacBook Pro be used as a target disk?

I have a Santa Rosa MacBook Pro, 15 inch display, with 250 GB and nVidia GeForce 8800 GT. A few weeks ago I left it to sleep, and the battery eventually drained (the blinking ceased). Now, if I plug in the charger, the light is always green (so are the little LED lights near the battery panel). If I hit the power on button, it doesn't respond.
I've resetted the PRM, and taken the battery out for 10 minutes and so on but it hasn't helped.
Would this call for a change in battery? I described it to a member of the Apple team at the Apple store (since I didn't have my laptop at the time we went to the mall) and he said it didn't sound good, but that's all he said.
It has once been in repair for a faulty logic board which Apple covered under an extension program, but that was a year and a half ago. Besides that it was working like a dream until this happened.
I have no warranty and I'm especially worried about the data I might lose because the external HD that Time Machine used died a few days ago.
I was thinking of using the MacBook Pro as a Target Disk, and connect it to my working Apple MacBook. But won't the MacBook Pro have to be switched on?
Please help! I would like any suggestions, detailed walkthroughs so I can atleast save my data.
Thanks!

...If I hit the power on button, it doesn't respond...
Yes, the computer must be able to at least turn on in order to work in Target Disk Mode. Your only option would appear to be to remove the drive from the Macbook, then put it into an external case so you could use it as your would any other external drive.
...the external HD that Time Machine used died a few days ago....
Oh dear, Murphy seems to have taken a large interest in you. While it won't help you now, for the future, what I always recommend to my clients is to have "at least 3 copies". Basically, this is the original, one "normal" backup and another backup that's stored offsite in a firesafe. In addition to dead hard drive like you had, offsite is insurance against theft or damage to building and contents. And firesafe for obvious reasons, but that is at your discretion depending on the importance of the data. But even if you don't go offsite, at least manually make another copy of your documents, iTunes Library, iPhoto Library, etc. on to another hard drive, flash drive, CD, DVD, etc.

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