get stand alone cases for pc hard drives.

this is for a laptop drive.

Could try buying a enclosure for the faulty hard drive which should enable you to connect it via a USB. You should then see the drive as an external drive and maybe be able to the see the data if it just the boot data that's buggered. And then use the dive as an external drive once you've got you data off.

Just Googled "laptop hard drive enclosure" and there is indeed such an item.
(Thanks Chris G)

** Ah, Lee, you beat me to it. Again, THANKS!

available for desktop-format drives where you plug the drive into the approprate interface inside the housing and connect the housing to your computer via USB. I don't know about laptop-format drives, but I can't see why the same thing shouldn't exist.

This will of course only be of use if the drive still spins up and proves accessible. What did it do or sound like when it failed? Is there still a warranty on the drive?

If the fault is mechanical (i.e. with the drive itself or the head that read it), you've probably lost your data, though you could pay quite a lot of money to a data recovery company to try and retrieve it (outcome uncertain).

If it's the controller at fault (i.e. an electronics problem) there may still be a chance of replacing just that, though laptop drives are pretty heavily "integrated" due to their small size, and there may not be a separate controller circuit board that can be swapped out/in.

Drives are so cheap nowadays that few people will even consider repairing them (professionally).

All I remember is the usual start on the Mac (little circular counter), followed by the default blue screen, and then..... nothing. That's as far as it would go. The minimal outlay for the enclosure is worth the risk.

If you have it on your version of OS is designed for these kind of situations. And could give you a use for you spare hard drive if it is just software glitches.

You don't need to buy an enclosure. The most flexible solution is an adaptor that you plug one end into the USB port and any drive (IDE, SATA or 2.5in IDE) into the other end. They all come with a power supply. Maplins sell them if you want one today but mine was about £10 from an ebay shop. I've used mine with OSX, Vista, XP and even my Humax PVR discs.
Here's one:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-to-IDE-2-5-3-5-5-25-hard-disk-drive-HDD-Ca...

to know if I resolved my HD issue (ahem). Well, thanks to your helpful replies, I've managed to save the entire contents. I bought a caddy (I'd ordered it before your response, John W) from Amazon and I was able to access all the files within 5 minutes of the postie's arrival. Thanks again, one and all.

I find the caddy to be a better solution. It's a neat little aluminium enclosure, which comes with drawstring bag for storage. The Mac displayed a warning, stating that I couldn't write to the HD until I re-formatted it -- that can wait, for now. At least I've saved all my photos and music.