You need to restart your computer/can't mount Macintosh HD

Question

My problem is a bit of a complicated one and I have a lot of background info to explain, therefore I will try to go into great detail so please bear with me.
A couple of days ago I used Boot Camp to install Windows Vista on my Macbook. Everything was working fine and I used vista with no problems for a few days. Then yesterday I was playing a game in Vista and instead of manually quiting out of the game I took the lazy way out and just pressed the power button on my Mac which I had set in Vista to power down the computer. After a few second Vista shut down like it should have and the computer was off. I then pressed the power button again to turn on the computer. My startup disk at this point was Macintosh HD so I just let it boot up onto that volume.
And that's where the problems began. OS X booted BUT not all the way. It went past the startup chime, past the gray Apple, all the way to the blue screen with the rotating gear. But then it just stopped there. At first I thought the computer was just slow starting up because I shut down from Vista in a strange way but after a substantial amount of time of OS X not going past that point with the blue screen and rotating gear I decided to restart by pressing the power button for a few seconds and then pressing it again to start up. It went to the same place and hanged again. I did this 3 or 4 more times with no luck.
At this point, I consulted my Macbook manual and found out what to do if the computer doesn't start up. The best solution I could find by looking through pages 43 to 45 was to *zap the PRAM*. Simple enough, I restarted the computer and did the key combination and it restarted. Upon being restarted, it no longer went to the blue screen. No, no, not even close. It showed me the gray Apple logo and then after a second or two showed me the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen in four languages. No matter how many times I restarted and booted into OS X, it always showed that.
Now I have tried rezapping the PRAM probably ten times now and all it does is it shows me that as I have now learned "kernel panic" screen.
So I thought maybe I could repair the volume using Disk Utility on my OS X Installation DVD. So I did just that. I repaired the Macintosh HD volume. And that's when I noticed something strange. The Macintosh HD Volume was grayed out. I could still click on it and Disk Utility would still display options for what I could do with it but it was greyed out. It didn't take me long to find out that the volume was not mounted. I noticed this because my "Untitled" Windows Vista volume was not grayed out and had an "unmount" button. Again it didn't take me long to figure out that I should just click the mount button and my problems would be over. So I clicked and nothing happened. It just did something for a few seconds but didn't mount it. I don't know how many times I clicked on that **** button (out of frustration) but nothing happened.
And this is where I am now, with no idea about what I can do. My biggest worry is that I'll have to format the Macintosh HD and reinstall OS X but that's really my last, last resort because I have documents that are not backed up anywhere else and it would be a great hassle to restore them. If I was wiser I would have bought backup software for my Mac but I only bought it a month ago and went on an overseas trip in a very far away place a few days after buying it.
Anyway, it would be great if there was some sort of solution to fix this problem without wiping my volume clean. If there is none, and trust me, I'd try anything as long as I don't lose my files, then is there some sort of utility that can back up my volume onto a DVD or external hard-drive or something without booting up into OS X??
By the way, if this helps in any way: I have no problems booting up and using the Windows Vista volume.
Thanks in advance, and please help me.

Answer 1

Hello,
First of all thanks for the reply. The only problem is that I've already tried what you suggested. When I press the option key on the keyboard with the installation cd inserted I see what I am supposed to, the CD, Windows Vista and Macintosh HD. When I select Macintosh HD it does that same thing, goes to the "restart your computer" screen.
If I try to change the startup disk from the OS X Installation disk the only two volumes that show up are "Windows Vista on Untitled" and the "OS X Installation" disk, no Macintosh HD to even choose. I believe the reason for this is because Macintosh HD but as I have already said, it just can't be mounted.
I think the reason that Macintosh HD shows up when I press Option at startup is because Apple has hard-coded it in so that it's always there, no matter if you can actually access it or not depending on whether or not it's mounted.
Right now the best thing for me is to find out how to mount Macintosh HD, if it has to be done manually through Terminal I'll do it, I just need the syntax but something tells me if it doesn't work through GUI it probably won't work through command prompt.
Anyway, thanks for the reply. Let's hope we get something.