How to read disk from crashed PC

"mijewen" wrote:

> Folks,
>
> My desktop PC had two users, both with passwords, for my daughter and
> myself. There was also a shared directory where we stored files that we
> shared. It ran Windows XP (Home edition).
>
> The PC crashed. I'm pretty sure the mother board went down (when I switch
> on, there's no video at all, not even the CMOS messages). I also think the
> OS is damaged on the hard drive. I measured the PSU, and everything seems to
> be at the right voltage. I still have the Windows CD, of course, so there is
> a chance I could recover the OS if I bought a new mother board., but here is
> my quandry - I am faced with renewing my PC, but I think I would rather buy a
> laptop this time.
>
> I put the hard disk into a USB disk chassis, and I can read the files from
> the shared area with my company laptop, but I can't read the files from my
> user area, and I want certain files back. Is there any way I can recover
> them without rebuilding a desktop PC? Naturally, I know the password.
>
Message to Malke and John -
Thanks very much to both of you. I bought a copy of Knoppix, and after
spending a while figuring out how to drive it, was able to copy my entire
user area to available space on the same disk. It took a long time, both
reading and writing 80GB through the USB cable, but it worked.

Many thanks,

MikeC.