UKC

i ve been using an compaq laptop running xp as a fill in (kids wrecked the "good" one) , foolishly i ve got a couple of important files on it. it now wont boot and just goes into a blue screen loop , i ve tried all the options from boot , things like return to last good configuratio but all of them just go in to a reboot. what are the options for getting as much of the data off the hard drive as possible. i m "reasonably" IT literate but have no idea where to start. any help much appreaciated , even what might seem like basic advice will taked on the chin. i m typing this on a borrowed xp laptop , i ve also got an external hard drive.

In reply to mike123: You could try booting the laptop off a live linux cd like ubuntu and then (hopefully) mount the disk and copy the files onto your external drive.

In reply to mike123: do you have access to a company it department? they helped me out when i had same problem - basically just took old hard drive out, copied it, and put it back on a new one which they put in my laptop