Working with laptops is different. You can take out the hard drive (much easier as compared to desktops) but you cannot just plug it to another laptop or a desktop just like that. You may, if you have the right external hard drive enclosure but I had some bad experiences using them.

If you had saved all your data on a separate partition, your data is safe since you can just format your Windows partition and re-install the Operating System without harming the data.. What to do if that is not the case? Reinstall and forget the data? Not everybody can afford that. Luckily, you don’t have to!!

There are free utilities available that can create a CD with an Operating System on it. Then you can use that CD to boot your computer and access your Hard Drive and recover your data. Reatogo-X-PE and BartPE are two such tools that use your original Windows OS CD to create a bootable recovery CD. Once you have created the recovery CD, just connect a USB drive to the computer and boot from that CD. The system may bot detect the USB drive if you attach it after booting from the system. BartPE has a very basic where as Reatogo-X-PE gives you a more Windows like experience with some advance features. Once you are logged-in, just go to My Computer and copy the data from your Hard Drive to the USB Drive and Woala!!

Links:

Reatogo-X-PE

BartPE

Note - Please read the Licensing issues on BartPE website. Same should apply for Reatogo-X-PE as well.

Prevention is Better than Cure!! Follow these steps to prevent your system from getting infected:

Install a Firewall
Firewalls may slow down your internet browsing a little by throwing in additional confirmations boxes but it may keep unwanted softwares out of your machine.

Install a AntiMalware
These keep a check on computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software.

You can download these tools from here: Download Utilities

Update your software

Whether it is your Windows Operating System, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware or the Firewall, keep the auto-updates on and update your software as soon as an update is available since this way your armory will be up-to-date to fight against all these Malwares.

Fianlly, browse the internet safely since sometimes what you see is not what you may end up with. Pay extra attention when opening attachments even if it seems to be coming from a friend. Install Active-x controls only from reputed websites.

Have fun browsing!!