Did My Hard Drive Fail or Can I Restore?

[shabbelle]

Want to confirm actual Hard Drive Failure before buying another (in case I just needed to be more tech saavy in fixing this issue).

A friend gave me their MacBook running Tiger 10.4 cause it crashed.

Installation CD does not recognize the HD and all options grayed out so I cannot erase and restore. S.M.A.R.T. status says "Not Supported". Firmware version is 3.1965.

I tried booting up in Safe Mode but nothing. Hard Drive does not make those clicking noises so I am hopeful it is not completely fried.

OPTIONS PLEASE? Like...A different way of booting up? (like getting a firewire and connecting it to my iMac?)

Anyone here understand the guts of our OS X systems and can help me get this sad old MacBook to recognize its hard drive?

THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!

 

[remorseless]

Not looking good

That is not looking too hopeful. Yes, you can try a firewire (start up holding command-T), but I'm thinking your iMac will not see it. The good thing is I had a similar problem, and found Apple is doing a recall of some hard drives - you might want to look into it.
http://www.apple.com/support/macbook/hd/repairextension/
My advice is take it to an Apple store, and ask if you fit the bill for the recall. On the down side, Apple will not cover the data you loose- hopefully you use Time Machine??