Stewart,
If your hard drive DID crash....DO NOT reinstall your OS via the system recovery UNTIL after you retrive your valuable data...
when my work PC bit it...I bought a brand new shiny one (hey not my $$$)but you can just pick up a new drive...
I took the old drive and slaved it in the new system...although the old drive would NOT boot the system all of my data files were intact and retrievable...
If your data is vital (or you just wish not to loose those GA Rally Pics of the yutes in the parkinglot...you KNOW which ones I mean!!
this may work for you...
if this is not a concern then just system recover from the dell disks...
