I won't make any suggestions for /him/ but I do have a suggestion for /you./

Take the hard disk out of the damaged computer and put it into a good
computer (as a second hard disk). Use the good copy of Windows XP to
copy the data from the old hard disk.

Hard drives these days are encased pretty solidly, so it's quite
possible that you'll be able to get all your data from the disk. (I
wouldn't use that disk again.)

In the event that the disk won't spin up, don't worry (yet.) There are
more advanced ways to extract the data, but they'll cost you. Or someone
else.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Betsy A wrote:
> My husband dropped my computer and I can not retreive any of my data that I
> have on it and that is about 3 years worth of work. I also can not retrieve
> any pictures. I went to recovery but it doesn't allow the calendar to go
> back further that 3 days after the incident happened. You can imagine how
> happy I am with my husband so any suggustions would be good for him.