How to recover files on unbootable drive

[sgb]

My computer won't boot after I deleted some files in my Windows directory.

The computer has one large C drive with Windows XP.

How can I get the system up and running to run your recovery software without destroyng my drive contents? Will your software be able to recover these files?

[GDH]

You may not need data recovery software.

The fastest way to get files of this drive is to connect it to another computer as the slave drive. Then you can boot the other computer and you should get access to the file system on the slave drive. There is lots of information on Google about how to connect a second drive to a computer if you are not sure how.

In terms of getting the drive back to a state in which it will boot, well, it depends what you deleted in the first place.

You can try and run Recover My Files and restore the deleted files, or once you hav your data off it may be easier to reinstall Windows.