When starting recovery mode the loading bar fills up half way then the screen turns white, why might that be?

- Can you start in Internet Recovery:

you may be able to force your Mac to boot into Internet Recovery by holding down Command+Option+R at startup.

- Why are you booting to Recover? I ask since maybe yo hae this problem

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

-- Do you have a bootable clone or bootable USB install media you can try to boot from?

Use the Snow Leopard installation disks the came with the MBP to access Disk Utility>First Aid and try to repair the HDD.

Ciao.