XP sp2 not booting even is safe mode

Hi to all, I hope somebody can shed some light over this.....
My pc has stopped booting and I cannot even acces the dos prompt to save any file.
It has been working fine until yestyerday but as of today it is getting stuck at the blue screen with the windows logo reporting loading Windows.
I tried to boot in safe mode, no result, the same applies for sfe mode (dos) or even from the norrton 360 bootable cd. I do not have the original windows cd as it is a pre-installed version.
I have norton 360 and about 3 months ago also add Spybot as i though there might be some bastard spyware-malware in there. No problem has really happened since.
when the pc tries booting, after the initial screen where it allows me to choos the boot devices , i can see the red blinking light of the HD working for a while, but as soon as the screen turns black and then goes into the loading window the red light stops blinking and the computer never loads up. The keyboard and mouse(usb) are though still fully operational.
I mainly want to rcover the files on the HD
Could i plug it in in a working (different) pc as a slave HD and access it or will it not allow me having windows os loaded on it?
Any suggestions ? thanks for the interest
Luca

 

If the hd is still good, that should work. The other pc will boot from the master and then you should be able to look at the files on the slave drive.