Accessing laptop's hard drive when OS won't boot

What is the best way to access a laptop's hard drive to recover data (assuming there is still intact data) when the OS (Windows XP) won't boot?

EDIT: I've tried booting from a disc, but that failed as well.

Solution 1:

There are two main methods:

1. Pull the drive out and install in another location (USB enclosure, etc).
2. boot your system using a Live CD, e.g. Knoppix.

If you want to go the pull drive route this is a very good adapter - I use one at my bench at work.

If you want to go the Live CD / USB route I generally prefer Knoppix for my usage. Another good alternative (if you are using Windows 7) is the installation disk for Windows. There is a repair mode available which can be used to copy files to another drive.

If you are unavailable with WIndows DVD or Lice CD or afraid of using Repair CMD you can follow the "Launch Start Up repair trick" where you can copy files to USB / external HDD as well.

Steps: 1) Get "launch start up repair by force shutdown 3 or 4 times" 2) Select start up repair then after some time you will get restore option cancel it. 3) After a couple of minitues of advance repait you will get a pop-up "Send the information" or "dont send". 4) Dont close it check the details below you will find a .txt link click it. 5) Go to file->open then start copying the files Thats it..

Solution 2:

How about just booting with a Windows DVD itself, and copying files that way? (No need to install!)

You can just run the command prompt, open Notepad, and use the File->Open dialog to copy/paste files anywhere. :) If you want to copy an external, just have your external plugged in before booting, and it should appear there as well.

Oh, and if you don't have a Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD: just download the Windows 7 Enterprise trial and burn it.

Solution 3:

Make a live USB drive of Puppy Linux Slacko (115 MB). It will boot even if your screen is not working and your harddisks are corrupt or missing, and requires only 30 MB of RAM. Just boot from the USB drive and that's it - it'll install in 30 seconds and you can access your internal HDDs.

Solution 4:

Boot up from a USB flash drive, then try and access the internal HDD. Another thing you could do is take out the internal and use a USB SATA Adapter with it on a different machine.

As a last resort trying freezing it; it has worked for me several times.