Trying to Retrieve Data from a Computer that will not boot

Today, a teacher brought a hard-drive to me. The computer had "crashed" and would not boot in any mode, safe mode, repair mode, nothing. She was desperate to try and get all her pictures and files that were never backed up. I came across this website, and we were actually able to retrieve the data. Tho, it was a slow process, and especially interesting when I downloaded the German version of the boot-up CD. I was literally on translator.reference.com trying to translate the menu items so I could figure out what to do. But in the end it did work :)

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Computer_Basics/How_to_recover_files_from_an_unbootable_dead_computer.html


There are a lot of steps, but it may be worth it if you don't have backups of your treasured files.