I think I may be able to help you here bro.

There are two things that could be done that could allow you access to that information on your hard drive.

The first one is to download the ubuntu operating system, and create a disk. Then just boot from the disk drive and viola! You now have access to the information, and can copy it over to a flash drive. This may not work if the drive has completely failed.

Or

You can take the hard drive out of the computer and install it in another computer as a second hard drive. This will also allow access to the drive, and allow you to transfer the information you want to a flash drive, or right to the C drive of the computer you are using to access this information.