Why cant I boot past a horizontal striped screen?

Hi,

My MacBook Pro recently came up with this problem:

It suddenly shut down, and when I tried to boot it back up, it had horizontal grey stripes over screen. Now there are two options: Restore HD and another option.

Would Restore HD - wipe my hard drive?

Unfortunately I'm not very tech savvy I didn't back up my information. After hours of trying to fix the problem myself, I turn to you. Is there any way to fix this issue or at the least get my data back by taking out the memory and sticking it into an external enclosure?

Thank you,

A

Thank you so much for your answers! They are wonderful. However I have more information.

When I load the computer up it makes a large beeping noise, goes black and shuts down.

I heard that you could connect it to another computer and by pressing the key "T" you could view your information on the other computer? Has anyone tried this method? Am I missing any information to make this work? What kind of cable do I need to do the data transfer? My hope is that I can plug the computer into another one and into an external hard drive - where I would transfer my information from my troubled computer onto the hard drive. Any suggestions?