MacBook Shuts down during startup

My MacBook started acting slow the other day and then today when I started it up, it was in a constant lock up with a spinning pin wheel. No force quit commands or anything would work. So, I restarted it and now after the Grey screen with the Apple logo, the MacBook shuts down. The only thing I can get running is by holding C with the Leopard disc in there.
I tried to run Disk Utility from there but everything failed. I'm assuming I need a new hard drive? Is there anyway to save data from within the Leopard disc bootup? Maybe over a network?
Thanks

Hello,
I am having this very same issue. It shuts down during startup. I can boot into Windows, and using the Leopard startup disc, Disk Utility could not work any magic. I do not have a second Mac or access to one for any backup purposes. I have no idea what else to try, does anyone know something besides backing up through firewire, on how I can either save my computer's data or resurrect the drive? Thank you for your help.

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