I'm using Simply Mepis v3.4.3 live CD and trying to get into a hard drive with Windows XP that won't boot to get My Pictures, My Documents, the address book, etc. for a friend and really have no idea how to do it. I'm a newbie and old so please be explicit in your instructions.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give.
Gene

Boot from a good live CD like KNOPPIX or something. It's a lot easier to use a usb thumb drive or something like that to transfer files to rather than trying to burn a CD, so assuming you have one...insert it and see that it gets mounted.
KNOPPIX will show all drives on the desktop. Double-click each drive to open then to a window. When you find the drive with your pictures, highlight them and drag them to the usb drive.
Right-click the usb drive icon and select 'umount' or 'unmount'. Wait until all writing to the drive is complete, remove it and perform a transfer to some other computer for safe keeping.
This is a simple operation unless your XP drive is physically defective. Post back if you run into trouble.

Thanks you so much for your prompt answer. I downloaded KNOPPIX 5.1.1 and burned it to a disc. It worked just swell and we got everything off the hard drive that we needed. I'm sure we'll be needing it again sometime. Thanks again.

Gene