Recovery help?

[evolancer13]

Long story short I booted up my laptop and got an error message saying: 2100: hdd0 hard drive initialization error 1 and it restarted and gave me another message saying that a file is missing and it was: <Windows root> system 32\Hal.dll so tried to fix it with the only xp cd I can find which is all scratched up (my luck), and let it load and hit R for repair. Then it asked me which c:/ I wanted to use (can't recall the two but other one was like mini something) so I choose option 2: which was c:/windows then it asked for an administration password. But I don't have one nor never had or never used one. So I guessed and after 3rd try it prompted to reboot. so now I wanna know if I can recovery some files via sata cable (sata HD from thinkpad to my desktop pc motherboard)? Cause I have a ton of info and much needed school papers aka one that's due tommorow. So either I start from scratch or try to recover my essay which is mostly completed. Is it possible? Cause I'm having nooo type of luck.
Thanks