if you have XP Pro use Jafo's Link...if Home Edition use mine

you can also boot up CD and use Command Prompt to bring Taskmanager, hit new task and see if it shows your files. If it does drill down to System Restore

It has XP.

I have managed to access the second partition (thanks for NTFSDOS and READNTFS everyone), but unfortunately that's the one with the OS files on it, not the stuff he actually needs for his work > .

Using READNTFS, it acknowledges the existance of two partitions, but it claims the first one is FAT32, and it says "Error in sector #0 or BOOT sector is invalid"

Which, to me, translates roughly to something along the lines of: "you've got a virus, haha"

I asked dad if he remembered anything wierd happening a within a couple of days of the computer not working, and he said that he got an email that didn't have his email address in the To: CC: or BCC: fields. I'm assuming that there was a virus in the email, and whatever it was has destroyed part of the hard drive.

oh yeah you also mentioned that there are two partitions. You can reinstall XP on the partition that does not contain the files you need to access. You will be able to access them again after the install.

yeah what Static said

yeah some pc makers still put images on drives... it has some major disadvantages... the advantage is unknown to me... if he does not have the xp cd then creating those disks is the only other way... short of a reinstall. If he can avoid floppies

Don't trust Microsoft to rescue your system. Go here http://www.knoppix.org

Knoppix can read NTFS partitions (what XP uses). It can be used to rescue both Windows and Linux systems.

Also I switched because floppy drives are now considered old technology so I upgraded to a CD-ROM based rescue system.

And the award for "Diplomatic Use of Language" goes to...

JAFO!!

for the phrase "some lateral thinker's option". Perhaps a bit optimistic, but doubtlessly more civilized than the average first impulse.

Who wants to have to load six floppy disks? Not me.

jj you only need the floppies if you don't have an XP CD.

*factory installed software