restore lion hdd to external hdd

hey guys, my mums macbook pro was completely unresponsive so we had to hold the power button down. then when we rebooted it came up with the prohibited symbol. so it looks like the computer is messed up somehow. so what i tried to do is go into recovery and to disk utility and restore the hdd contents to an external hdd. it wouldn't let me, it says "The startup disk can't be used as a restore source. To use this disk as a source, restart your computer using the recovery system, and open Disk Utility again.". i did a bit of googling and apparently i have to hold down option and go to recovery, however the only option is "internet recovery". so i'm kind of confused on what to do now. i've already restarted using the normal internet recovery and it wouldn't let me restore it. the only thing i can think of is taking the hdd out and copying it to another mac, but i only want to do that if it's the only option i have left. so if anyones able to help, i'd be grateful. thanks! 🙂