my lap top wont boot up it comes up with a disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart. i think the hdd is knackerd and i can replace that but i need some information off the hdd. if anyone knows how to get the info off it without installing another o/s onto it please let me know thanx.

far short of removing the HDD and checking out the details on the casing, other option although it is a long **** is to see if the BIOS can display any info by hitting 'DEL' on boot up and selecting hardware