Mac Book Pro 2008 won't boot

Install Lion Through Yosemite from Scratch

If possible, back up your files.

1. Restart the computer. Immediately, at or before the chime, hold down the Command and R keys until the Apple logo and progress bar appear. Wait until the Utility Menu appears.
2. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
3. After Disk Utility loads select the volume (this is the indented entry, usually Macintosh HD) from the side list. Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility's toolbar.
4. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button
5. When the process has completed quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
6. Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button. 

Then your Recovery HD is also not working. Since that is a very old computer, you will need to start by installing OS X from the Software Restore DVDs that came with the computer or you can use the retail Snow Leopard DVD, if you have it. If you don't have either, then you need a Lion installer. You can purchase Lion at the Online Apple Store. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax.  It's a download. You will get an email containing a redemption code that you then use at the Mac App Store to download Lion. Save a copy of that installer to your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself at the end of the installation.

You will have to get access to another Mac in order to create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive installer.

That may be indicative of a corrupted or failing HDD. Do you have an external drive that you can use to boot the computer? If you do, then see if it will startup the computer. If it does, then use Disk Utility to try reformatting the internal drive.

Yes, because you needed to reformat the drive in order to fix any corruption causing the original problem. Hopefully, you have backups.