PLEASE Help! Don't know what to do!

PC info: Dell Inspiron One (All in one desktop) 2320(?); Windows 8

So I'm not sure what is going on. The computer was fine 24 hours ago. I left it on all night and tried to use it this morning and it has been strange ever since. I've restarted it a million times. I did 3 virus scans and they are all clear. I cannot access control panel; it will freeze. I cannot put it in safe mode because it will stay at the Please Wait screen. Internet browsers will not open or load. I cannot right click anything without it freezing.
I did notice, however, when logged in and clicking my name that Guest shows up. When I opened the command prompt it shows it was last accessed 2/07/2014. I haven't gone onto it and I disabled the account when we got the computer in the fall. I am the only tech savvy user in the house.
I don't know what to do. I don't know where the disc is. All of my important documents and photos and music are on it (obviously). I'm a student and I need this computer. Can someone please help?

 

Have you tried System Restore?

Another thing, in the event that this machine is beyond repair (I'm not saying it is) would be to burn a linux live CD and boot with that to get your data off to external media. Puppy Linux will do the job.

Live CDs are at http://livecdlist.com/

 

I cannot system restore because whenever I try to the computer freezes. Like something is stopping me from doing so.
How would I use Linux to get the data by the way? Not familiar with this method.

 

You need a working computer with a burner and burning software. Download the Puppy Linux ISO and burn it to CD/DVD. Use F8 at boot to select your optical drive as the first boot device (for this session only) and Puppy should boot up and want to do a bit of simple configuration to get your screen right and set up a network connection, You won't need the latter so you can skip that. When you get to the desktop there will be drive icons on the screen for each of your drives/partitions. The names won't look like they do in Windows but you can open them and start copying files to an external drive of some sort.

 

Is CD or DVD better?

 

Okay so I'm getting PL ready to burn. Can I do a system restore while on Linux? I still cannot do a system restore in Windows.

 

System Restore is only available in Windows. Once booted to your Linux CD the only access you have to Windows is to its files, which can be copied, moved, edited or deleted.

 

Totally forgot to update y'all but thank you for the help!
I put Linux on a CD-R and I put that in the drive, pressed F8 or F10 and the Windows system restore/refresh thing came up and I didn't even need Linux! It was weird, but thank you for the advice which I will keep for future reference!