retrieving data from a HD that I suspect got a virus

My mom's laptop stopped working and of course I'm chosen to save the day but what I'm suspecting is she got a virus on it and it did something to the HD. It is an old IDE laptop drive and I have an external case that fits those IDE drives so I put it in the case to plug into my PC's USB port to run my antivirus/anti spyware etc to get her machine back up and running but my PC says the disk needs formatted. I ran recuva on it and it says it is unable to read from the drive? There is some pretty important financial documents on there she needs. As long as I can retrieve those I wouldn't even mind reformatting it for her since it probably hasn't ever been done and it will definitely speed the machine up (it has XP so that gives you an idea of how old it is) but I want to try whatever I can before doing that to save those files she wants. It isn't the end of the world or anything, but I want to make sure I try whatever I can before formatting and losing the possibility of recovering, any ideas?

Run spinrite on it, you can get it at grc.com. It's around $80 but well worth it. If it does not work you can get your money back within 30 days.

Drive is dying so don't plan on format/re-install.

Spinrite is a good suggestion. I've personally had good luck with the products from Disk Internals. Their demo will show you what it can recover; it's your call afterwards on whether to buy the license.

ah so no half way decent free ones. btw bios sees the drive for what it is, and even has a disk check that I ran and it said the HD was in good health. You think it's dying regardless of what the bios disk check said? @ an $80 price tag I'll just pass on it for this particular case but that is good to know there is a value in the paid versions vs the free, I guess that's why they're free? lol. Thanks for the responses