Install disk can't repair

[TyWahn]

My Blackbook just ground to a halt this afternoon. I had to hold power button to turn it off. When I restarted it, I got a gray "no" sign (like the ghostbuster logo) where the apple should be.
So I booted to the Snow Leopard install disk to repair my boot disk. The name of the volume came up and I tried to repair it and it stopped half way through and said it can not repair the volume. It said to backup as many files possible, reformat and restore backed-up files.
How do I get to those. How can I back them up if I can't boot, or even go into Target Mode on my iMac? Is there something better than the Install disk to try and repair it?
If I choose to re-install SL will it leave my user account info intact?
Is there any hope? Is this an issue an Apple Store GB might be able to help with?

Thanks

 

[JediMeister]

You can try recovery software like Data Rescue 3, or maybe Disk Warrior. DriveSavers is another option but their services are not cheap. Reinstalling 10.6 is out of the question at this point with an irreparable hard drive. After you've exhausted you attempts at data recovery, repartitioning the drive would be the next step, followed by reinstalling 10.6.