--First off, do you own this laptop? If this is a school/business owned laptop, give it to the people you are borrowing it from and let them deal with it. You don't want to cause damage to it and get yourself in trouble.
--Has the laptop had any damage from things like falls, spills, power surges, etc....?
--Have you had unusual noises, smells, smoke, etc... coming from the laptop during the time you have owned it? Have you heard any beeping (like a loud, single tone beep) from the laptop, loud clicking, an so forth? (please think of any times you may have noticed these, it is very important)
--Are you using fully legal versions of all software on the computer?
--Did you do flash the BIOS or do any other updates to system configurations which preceded this problem? If so, where did you get the update flies? In that line of thought, have you used driver repair programs or a third party hard-drive defragmenter program?
--You may have a better chance of problem diagnosis, recovery and repair on the hard drive if you slave it to another computer. This is accomplished with a small connector cable which allows you to connect the laptop hard-drive to another computer (a desktop).