can you mount the partition as an "ext2" type and not "ext3" ????? (readonly while you are fixing the problem.)
The two filesystems are very similar. Mounting it as "ext2" you may/will lose any file that was being written/journaled when your system died, but the rest of the files should still be there.
You could then, as a last resort, copy the "damaged" filesystem someplace else, and "reformat" the "bad"/"broken" partition with "mkfs -t ext3 /dev/somedriveandpartitionhere".
Only dead fish go with the flow....
Hmmm, what did I miss?