Detection, on 04 November 2012 - 22:55, said:
Take the drive out and install it as a slave drive in another machine, copy documents, done
This is really the easiest way, if you have a external usb hard drive enclosure, if you have a desktop with a sata cable free you could also just plug it in there, I've done it before.
I'm assuming its a laptop, so removal isn't so difficult, there is usually screws on the bottom of the laptop which gives you direct access to the drive, just remember to remove the adapter deal that's usually stuck on the end of the hard drive, then put it in a usb enclosure, or plug it in to a desktop pc via sata and power cable. Boot and copy the files over, if windows gives you trouble just change the permissions of the folders etc...