How do I backup my MacBook Pro when the disk image is grayed out?

I have a MacBook Pro (15 inc. four years old) running OSX 10.6.8 and last night I got the color pinwheel of death.  I could not force quit anything and had to manually power down.
When I powered back up I got the folder with the question mark.  I ran Disk Utility and tried to Repair Disk, but I got:
Disk Utility stopped repairing "diskOs2"
...Back up as many of your files as possible
Details: Invalid B-tree node size
The volume could not be verified completely
Volume repair complete
Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk, Back up... at the disk, and restore your backed-up files
I hooked up an external hard drive and tried to make a copy of the disk image, but it is grayed out.  I also tried to partition the main Hitachi drive and make a "New Image" but I got: "Unable to create backup (input/output error)
So I now have a Genius Bar appointment for tomorrow, but I can't even back up my computer before going.  I can have them tell me what to do, but then I'll have to go home and do it, and then make a second appointment.
Any suggestions?  Oh, and I backed up this computer about six weeks ago on Time Machine, but I'd love to make a copy of all new files I've created since then.
Thanks!

You have two options. Purchase Disk Warrior or erase the drive. The former would require your ability to install a download of DW on a bootable disk so you could repair your hard drive. And, DW costs $99.00. The latter requires a Snow Leopard installer DVD from which you can boot, erase the hard drive, then reinstall Snow Leopard. Then download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. You can then restore from your Time Machine backup. There is no way now for you to backup files unless you can access the drive. Open Disk Utility, select the entry for your disk volume then click on the Mount icon in the toolbar. If your volume mounts on the Desktop then you may be able to copy files to an external drive or even run a Time Machine backup.

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