Saving Macbooks corrupted hard drive with Data Rescue 3

[Skipe]

My Macbooks (ap. 3 years old) hard drive died few weeks ago and I'd like to try to save the files on it. Friend had this program Data Rescue 3 but I'm a dummy when it comes to Macintosh stuff. Friend said I'd need an external hard drive, which I have now. What do I need to do? Can I save the files only to the external hard drive or do I have to replace the corrupted hard drive with a new one or what?

Thx for your answer!

[Milvus]

Can you start your macbook since the hard drive was corrupted?

[Skipe]

When i start it there appears a folder icon with a ? on it. I tried booting through the installation cd and launched the hard drive help tool (don't remember the correct name) but it couldn't find the hard drive at all. So I can't really start my macbook, the power goes on and the icon appears but that's all.

[Milvus]

Tricky. You probably tried disc first aid from the mac. But if you can't se the drive when running from the start-up CD, then data rescue 3 may not see it either. I've never used data rescue but if you can run the programme from a memory stick then you might have a chance to do something