if I chuck the 810MB hdd in a laptop then run a LiveCD can I image the drive to a format I could mount and read/repair under an emulator?
Piece of cake! Getting access to the drive on another machine is easy. Whether you can salvage the data is another matter, but you should definitely be able to re-prep it to get it back in service (assuming there's nothing disastrously wrong with it).
Check out the newest
WinUAE, which can access Amiga drives directly. I think the drive will work through a USB enclosure, but if not, getting it connected to a regular 40pin IDE port is easy these days.
Good luck, and welcome back.