Need help getting files off of bad laptop to desktop

[Heartbeateaj]

I have a laptop that wont load into XP, it freezes at the welcome screen, Have tried numerous things to fix, to no avail. Need to get some documents off the laptop and put on desktop, any ideas? Thanks alot!

[Thrax]

Do you know how to get in safe mode?

Press F8 rapidly as the PC is starting, and select "Safe mode with networking?"

Please try that and report back if it works or not.

[Pterocarpous]

Piece of cake. Remove the HDD from the laptop and install it into an external laptop HDD enclosure. They're relatively inexpensive (cost more for SATA). You can find them for SATA and IDE laptop HDDs.

Connect the laptop HDD, now in an external enclosure, to your desktop system (via USB) and pull off your data.

You can take advantage of having the laptop HDD connected to a good system and run some diagnostics on the HDD, too.

PS: If you don't know how to get at your laptop HDD and safely disconnect it from the system, let us know and we'll step you through it.