Hardrive read error, system won't boot

[pd123]

My friends 4 year old Dell running XP won't boot, read error, won't go into safe mode. He has no backup (stupid), Any suggestions what to do? How can I create a boot disk for him? If he can't boot Windows, we will try to take out and put the drive in another computer to get the info off it.
He lost his Windows cd, I have mine but of course not his serial #.

[Devhux]

Any of the Linux-based "Live CD's" would be a good route - though you might not be able to easily recover the data depending on the state of the hard drive.

[mechmike0034]

Any of the Linux-based "Live CD's" would be a good route - though you might not be able to easily recover the data depending on the state of the hard drive.

Knoppix tutorial (http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/geek-to-live--rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd-192982.php), with pictures...

More here (http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2007/10/24/backup-files-from-dead-windows-using-linux-live-cd/)...

Puppy Linux (http://puppylinux.org/downloads) does a good job of this as well, and will boot and run on virtually any PC with 128MB of RAM. It is much less resource-intensive than Knoppix and will read/write to NTFS.

[Markel]

The Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) can be very useful.

[mechmike0034]

As cheap as IDE hard drives have gotten (http://www.surpluscomputers.com/Maxtor_200GB_EIDE_Hard_Drive/DRV11284/partinfo-id-348171.html), I'd buy a new one, install it and load XP on it, slave the old drive in the second drive slot (assuming this is a Dell desktop rather than a notebook) and try to access the files that way.

After you replace the (probably failing) drive, any Dell Windows XP disc will work to reinstall Windows XP, and will not require activation nor even the entry of a product key during the installation process. Borrow one from somebody, or order one from Dell (https://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dellcare/en/backupcd_form) for cheap...

[pd123]

I put the drive in my older computer that runs IDE drive,as a slave, also a Dell running XP. Windows took about 20 minutes to boot. Got a message about many orphaned files and other problems. Windows said it was fixing with "mirrored" files. When it was done, and booted up, I was able to go to "my computer" and get the important data. Thank you all for your great help.