In cases like these, I throw the drive in a working computer as the second drive (or get a USB case to put it in) and you can get access to the drive and copy whatever you want. Another way is to get a bootable linux CD (lots online) and boot in linux and access the disk to copy. You could also use the XP disk and go into the repair mode which gives you access to the command promp or you could try the reinstall option which claims to fix your existing OS install (but I have had limited success with that)

Good luck with it...

Bob

>Is there an option to reinstall the OS without losing any data for the user? I'm not at the location of the PC and am trying to help someone out. Just trying to figure out the options. It's a Dell desktop and they did something with the CTRL-F11 key that supposedly restores the system to factory settings. Now she can't boot up. I read at a couple places that the Dell restore can cause issues, so now I'm just looking at it from the perspective of reinstalling the OS.