Dear friends
Yesterday when Iturned my computer on there was a black screen wich was saying  (vga857 fon file is corrupted  missing Windows can not start)  well Ihave a computer   as old as me (Iam 63 ) machine is Toshiba m45 133s   so dvd  player died on me last year  and  the old relic does   not support  usb booting    I would throwed away   but I have  50GB of psd files +35 GB of waw and mp3 also 25 so GB  movies loaded with out spare if you give me an idea You make me a very happy person 
Omar  Baris
Do you have any operating system discs for this computer?Confirm that your operating system is windows XP? truenorthEasiest solution would be to get an external HARD drive enclosure...
I recommend one that has it's own power supply.
Also if you shop around there are a few that will accomodate any style of HDD so you are not limited to just using it with laptop size DRIVES...GIVEN patio's comments i suppose it is necessary to determine what your DESIRES are. I read your post as trying to recover your computer and also your concerns re files on the computer.truenorth