MacBook Pro doesn't start - harddisk is not working

😟

I am desperate. My girlfriends MacBook Pro unibody, with OS Leopard doesn't start any more. It shows the grey screen with the apple, but that's it. I tried resetting the NVRAM - it didn't help. I tried starting in Safe Boot mode - it didn't start. I have booted from the installation DVD and run Disk Utility, but it doesn't even see the partition and all the buttons to Repair or Verify the disk are grayed out. And the System Profiler doesn't see the disk, but instead just gets stuck while trying to read it.

After all this I did a deep Hardware test, but it didn't find any problems.

I suppose then that the partition, but not the harddisk is corrupt... any ideas?

And one more question: is there a way to save the data from the harddisk before trying to erase and reinstall the system, or taking it to the service?