Windows Vista Laptop. Freezes on boot during diskcheck, can't quit diskcheck.

It simply does not respond to the keyboard. I have not tried going into BIOS so I do not know at what point it ceases to take input. It then refuses to turn off unless I unplug the power and remove the battery.

I tried putting in my Knoppix 5.1 CD to try and backup her personal files. While it works and boots to Knoppix and her hard drives get mounted but with errors(dirty mount forced, and another error that I do not remember), when I try and go to documents and settings in her drive the folder is there but its empty. Is this some kind of Vista protection feature or is it caused by the mounting errors? Or should I get the latest version of Knoppix?

What can I do to resolve the first stated issue?

 

halp?