Recovery problems/stuck in Iraq

I have a Compaq presario 2100 and the hard drive has crashed. I have downloaded Recover My Files Data Recovery 2.52 from another computer and burned it to a cd. How do I recover data from my computer using this program? I am in Iraq and have none of the recovery disks that came with my computer. I am running windows XP home edition. Thanks

 

What exactly do you mean by crashed?
Can you boot into safe mode?
Does it do any thing at all?
Do you have a boot disk?
What does it do when you turn the power on?

Hopefully, this will be easy.

 

Thanks for replying. Please be patient with me this is my first time on this site but am glad i found it. When I turn my computer on it gives me the option to enter setup and then the screen goes blank. I've tried using advanced setup options and going under safe mode but that doesn't work either. It won't let me acces the C:. I have someone who can reload XP but I don't have a boot disk with me. Dumb decision not to bring it when I came over. I'm mainly concerned with recovering pictures and some word documents. As for the crash: I'm connected to a LAN, the computer was turned on and all of a sudden windows shut down and opened up twice on it's own and then shut down for good.

 

I know the following may sound complicated but you can enter the BIOS of the machine and set the CD-ROM to first boot device- save the settings and exit the bios. Then put the XP cd in the drive and reboot the machine. XP setup should run automatically. Then you can run a repair on the system.

 

Kodo,
Do I need to have a boot disk or can I just load a copy of XP on top. Also, what are the chances of recovering data if I do it this way?

 

If you do a repair install (which it should ask you for when you start with the XP CD in the drive) hen you won't lose any of your data.