Is it possible to recover individual files from my Macbook Pro's HD even if it won't boot?

Recently, my Macbook Pro would slow down longer than usual as I was performing menial tasks, like internet surfing, and so I tried to clear the memory by restarting it. It only went up to a white screen from there, and when I turned it off by holding the power button and turned it back on, it would only boot up to the white screen with the Apple logo and a spinning wheel and progress bar below it.
Mine is a late-2011 13-in Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion. I've tried every way that I've found to try and repair the disk, like using Disk Utility to try and repair my HD (I get the message telling me to back up as many files as possible, then reformatting my hard drive), to "fsck"-ing (I get the messages "Incorrect block count for file live.4.indexPositions" and "disk0s2: I/O error"), and even to using Sungle-User mode to try and delete that "live.4.indexPositions" file (I get told that no such file exists).
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that my only remaining option is to reformat my HD, but I was wondering if it was possible for me to maybe cut and paste some of my documents and pictures to an external HD before I reformatted because I don't have them anywhere else. Is it possible? I know I should've made a back-up before it all happened, but alas, my lack of a big-enough external HD rendered me un-cautious.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Your hard drive is broken and you can't erase it. The only option you have is to take it to a company that can recover your files from the hard disk, because you can't do anything with it.
If you want, you can try to take it out, put a new hard disk and install Mac OS X. Then, use a USB to SATA adapter to connect the old hard drive to your MacBook and try to recover your files, but probably you won't be able to access to the data

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