Macbook won't let start up..

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Hello, I have a macbook pro, and am having some really strange trouble with it.
First, it was telling me my password was incorrect, which it absolutely was not. THe only way I can be so sure of this is because I was reformatting my iPod, and in doing so, it asked me to enter my password to grant permission for the reformatting, which I did, and it worked fine. shortly after wiping the iPod, my computer died. I came back to it, and booted it up to the login screen - at this point in time, it was refusing to accept my password as correct. I tried caps lock, no caps, tried to let it die, restart, etc. etc.

Eventually I was led here, where I found a series of posts with the same problem, and one suggested to type in a script through terminal before the computer was fully booted. It was basically a script to access the password keychain, and update it from there. I put in the script, and restarted my computer. However, this time, instead of going to a login screen like it normally does, it went to a language selection screen, similar to the one you see when you first install the OS. So it prompted me "please select what language you would like to use this software." I clicked English, the dialog box went away for a moment, just to pop up again, and this is where i'm at now. Over and over it will continually just revery back to this screen, not allowing me to do anything.

So this is where I need your help. My CD drive doesn't work, or else I would have just booted from my disk. If there's anyway I can avoid formatting my computer, that would obviously be the more desirable route. To make things perhaps more complicated, i'm not entirely sure which exact operating system I am running, which i'm sure doesn't help. Although I believe it's Snow Leopard. I have already tried to press CMND+R to reformat it, but it won't even allow me to do that.


PLEASE HELP!!
 
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Location
Cupertino, California
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro Retina 15" Intel Core i5 / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 plus
Give us some info about your Mac, such as the model.
 
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The only information I can say for sure, being as I can't access the system profiler is that it's a Macbook Pro, with a 17" display. Upon removing the bottom panel, I noticed on part of the circuit board, it has an area that says Apple (C) 2009. So i'm assuming it was either released in '09-'10. I believe it is the second generation, because the unibody casing. I took a picture of the hard drive, in hopes that any information on there can help solve my problem.

IMG_2908_zps8vsxah5g.jpg
 
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i've also tried starting it in verbose mode, in each of the phases it says "incorrect number of ___________" and then it says system was updated or modified, could not repair hard disk after 3 attempts. or something to that degree. is there any way to reformat this hard drive at this point? or do i just need to get a new hard drive? obviously i'd like to avoid the latter.
 

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