I left my mac book on over night-doing final grades...woke up and noticed it had shut off from sleep mode. I tried to start it: makes start up noise, get grey screen, little apple logo and gear circling, then after about 8 seconds hear little click and it shuts off. i have tried to turn on holding shift key, then control+option+p+r keys, and even tried to start with the system discs and all these do is give the computer about 5 more seconds of the original grey screen with above before same click and shut off.

I am tired of using internet cafe to do my work with all the screaming kiddies playing games and keyboards with half the key characters worn off.

Anything else I can try or should i just get new drive? Where would you suggest getting fixed/new drive ?

I have Apple's list of service providers, fortune city is convenient but some repair places are better than others. If they told me i need x, w, and z I would have to believe them.

If the hard drive does need replacing what drive would you recommend?

I have seen on-line you tube videos that state you can EASILY copy the contents from the dead hard drive to a new hard drive with special cables. Any idea what a reasonable fee would be paid to have this done in Bangkok. Although I need my work information I am more concerned about five years of pictures(from time I have been in Thailand and traveling throughout SE Asia).

Take it to a mac repair shop.

Boot failure in mac can range from corrupt RAM module to hard disk failure to failing logicboard to internal circuit shorts.

If you cannot load bootable disks, it may not be HDD failure. So, I repeat, take it to a repair shop.

If it is really your HDD that has failed and want to recover your data, it depends on the extent of disk failure. Will cost you a few thousands to a lot of thousands.