So...
The cd-rom does not work either?
If both Hdd and Cdrom are busted, I'm guessing controller, as previously mentioned. This MAY mean that the controller is sedning erronious commands to the drive. The drive may not even be bad!
I would remove the laptop hdd and get a converter, either USB or IDE and plant the drive into a workstation; From there you can attempt to recover the data.
Done it..
-SF