Two nights ago my PC crashed. The news magazine was almost finished and for reasons I don't understand, Norton did not make a backup copy on my backup drive. All of that work stuck on a HDD that I cannot access. It is frustrating! I hate using my laptop. Half of the time it misses the keys I type and I constantly have to go back and reinsert the missing letters. (Every other word and I have to hit the keys hard!)

I have tried everything I know to do. It will not boot even from a disk. (The infamous VISTA black screen.) I even tried pulling out the hard drive and connecting it to my laptop via a USB connection. I can see the drive in my device manager but it will not assign a drive letter to it so I cannot access the files. Any PC gurus out there who can help? Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most !