Recovering data from hard drive of non-bootable PC

[PeterRH]

I'm unclear from the FAQs whether RecoverMyFiles can be used to recover files on a hard drive that won't boot up with Windows, without transferring the hard drive to be a slave on a working machine. I can enter the Microsoft Recovery Console and chkdsk stops after 33% with message 'The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems'. If I run Hard Drive Diagnostics from the Boot Device Menu I get the message 'Drive 0: Maxtor 6Y160M0 - Fail. Return Code: 7'.

Can the auto-run CD version be used in the CD drive of the faulty PC to read the hard drive? If so can I save recovered files to a USB key drive?

[GDH]

Recover My Files needs Windows to run. It relies on Windows to get access to the drive.

The best option is to connect the problem drive to another computer as a secondary drive.

A possible option is to search Google.com for a "boot cd". This will allow you to boot into Windows and then load programs into memory, like Recover My Files. Make sure you find one from a trusted source - we dont generally use them because you never know exactly what they are doing to your pc.

[PeterRH]

Thanks. I need to replace my hard drive anyway so will install old drive as slave.