ok heres the problem; my friend dropped over his notebook last night(won't start).

Its a fujistu notebook and at startup it reads "the following file is invalid or corrupt> C:\windows\system32\system

The cd drive is'nt working on it and he has some excel files he needs to recover from the notebook.

My choices are??? kick it?

Really, is there a way I could connect a second notebook using an ethernet cable(i've always wondered what 'boot from network' means??? or is this a lost cause

If you had a pendrive to install it onto, you could put a livecd of Ubuntu on to a pendrive and then copy the files across via that

I have a pendrive....but how would I go about loading windows usb services and drivers to even start doing that. As soon as the notebook boots(just after the boot menu) it stops, no nothing is loaded not even dos...and also theres no way to get the support tools loaded as the cd drive is conflunked...unless you know of a way to get it on...

You don't need to, something like DamnSmallLinux runs off a Pendrive, and lets you access the hard drive, all you need to do is set it to boot from USB (or in some cases "Removable") and then use Linux to copy the files back to your pen drive.

Ok, I have a 250mb pandrive....anywhere I try to download DSL or DSL-N the links are broken

Edit: ok got v3.3....its an iso...do i need to do anything install or otherwise or just copy to pendrive?

Edit: ok reading through i need dsl-2.0RC2-embedded.zip

All modern BIOSs have a USB driver, that's how it's possible to boot off a USB device in the first place. Just set the BIOS to boot from USB and you'll be set. You might need to connect the USB device for the BIOS to let you do so.

If you have access to a pc and the right cable, you can take the hard drive out of the laptop and hook it up to the pc as a slave.
The laptop HD is probably 2.5inch so you need an IDE cable with 2.5 at one end and 3.5 at the other. Or a standard cable and a convertor.
Just make sure you set the jumpers on the hard drives correctly, they normally have a sticker on telling you where to put them.
More hassle then the other methods people have suggested, but its something to try if they dont work.

I be stealing your thread.

How much heat can chipsets usually take?
As the fan on mine stopped last night which crashed the computer.
But when booting it, in the starting screen I have option to ignore the message saying "chipset fan is not working, or it is working at too low speed".
So if I just press the key to ignore it, would I be in how much of a risk to peter my computer?

I´m going to buy a new computer at the beginning of the next month tho, but I can't live without me pc for that long ;D

The fan has done it's stopping thing odd month ago, to fix it I deattached the fan, opened it and cleaned it from dust and such and added a drop of proper "oil", worked till yesterday. Would do it again but dont have the tools myself and the place I fixed it last time can't be visited in the coming week.
Can't really put a new fan in it neither, cos it is rather small, yet it's just and just small enough to get my gfx card fitted without being in the way.

So, is it ok to make the chipset suffer a little bit?

Get a tool called "ITE Smart Guardian", should tell you your Chipset temp - i'd say 60 is about the max i'd let mine hit, but even on a heavily overclocked (ie the FSB is running 154% the speed it should be, getting things hot - not to mention the extra volts it's got!) - if i give it lots of load the chipset hits 44 and this is with an Asus A8N-SLi Premium (using the standard passive heatpipe design), which is an nForce 4 SLi chipset and no airflow at all in the case - i'd say that 50 would be getting warm but 60 should be fine

a chip can easily take up to 75-80 degrees (not all day long though).

Mine his 68 when compressing big files on "BEST" in winrar, using WMP and video editing at the same time o.o

*kicks my pc cos it froze*

Quote from Jonesy_ :

ICan't really put a new fan in it neither, cos it is rather small

You can buy some quite diddy fans. Would one of these not fit?

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/40mmfans

Best solution 4 the original question would be to remove the HD from the laptop, recover the required files by plugging the HD into another machine & replace or clean the CD ( does work sometimes ).

Any shop will be able to recover the files without any problem if you can't.

The Cd shouldn't be too expensive to replace & then just repair or reinstall windoze. ( Or install linux )