[Hack&Lube]

This is fixable to a regular IT person but may be more complicated without getting some help for others.

What version of Windows is on the laptop? If the repair process isn't working, one option is boot up with the installation CD, boot into recovery, and extract the backup registry hives and replace the ones that have been corrupted. You could also physically take the drive out and plug it into another system and do the same operation, but sometimes that has unintended consequences with permissions.

After that is done, it should boot properly. From that point on, you can run it as is or run system restore to get the system back to an earlier time.

If you just want the files off the laptop, that is easy enough to accomplish. Again, just pop out the drive (should be very easily accessible in any laptop) and plug it into another system directly or via a USB external HDD enclosure or any other kind of adapter and you should have access to files. You may need to re-jig the permissions and take ownership however if the files are inside the user profile or documents folders.