Hard Drive Failed how to backup

My boss's daughters Macbook Pro has a hard drive failure. You get the blinking folder with the question mark when it starts up. I've tried a lot of different things.
1. I've removed the battery and started it up. No success.
2. I've connected it via firewire to my imac. My Imac will not recognize the drive.
3. I've booted it with the install disk to run disk utility. No success.
4. I've tried to reinstall the OS and the drive cannot be recognized.
Is there another way to be able to backup the drive?

What is the error message when you run disk Utility and what does the S.M.A.R.T. status say of the hard drive? To fix the drive and salvage any data on it you will need to invest in a good utility program like [Disk Warrior|www.diskwarrior.com] which fixes the directory (a corrupt directory is the most common cause of disk malfunction). What you could try in the mean time though is [Data Rescue II|http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php]. Download the demo onto your iMac and plug the MBP into it and see if it recognizes the drive. If it does you can test run the program and see what data can be salvaged. However you need to buy the program if you actually want to salvage any data.
Steve

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