Vista will not operate

[tiredoftypical]

Hello all, please do not flame this thread. I am a complete newb, but all I am trying to do is seek some advice/help. I have a year old Acer Aspire 5920 Laptop with Vista installed. My computer froze one day and all of a sudden I could not restart the computer(by restart I mean get back into my profile) So I restarted a few times and now the OS is not found? Startup repair promts and says it 'could not detect a problem'
However, there is a lot of problems under the problem detail tab:

Problem event name: StartupRepairV2
Problem Signature 01: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 02: 6.0.6000.16486.0.0.0
Problem Signature 03: 0
Problem Signature 04: 65537
Problem Signature 05: unknown
Problem Signature 06: OsVersionMismatch
Problem Signature 07: 0
Problem Signature 08: 0
Problem Signature 09: unknown
Problem Signature 10: 1168
OS Version: 6.0.6000.1.0.0.156.1
Locale ID: 1033

I am extremely concerned because there are so many important documents and school assignments on here, and I dont understand why this happened. It was running slowly, so I'm asuming a virus, but I really need these files. I wouldn't mind loading them onto another computer or something, it's just paramount that I do not lose them.
Is there any way of say, hooking up a usb cable to my windows xp desktop and transferring the files somehow? I really have no idea.
Please if you can, help me out. Thank you in advance,
Jason

[patio]

Grab one of these from a PC store:

                                           

2.5" to IDE connector...about 8 Bucks.
This will enable you to hook up that drive to a desktop machine to retrieve any data on it...
Remember to scan any files and folders first if you suspect an infection...

As to the Vista issue have you installed SP1 for Vista on that machine ? ?
If it is not part of your Vista CD this will happen. The solution is a bit of work but you will need to slipstream SP1 into the Vista install files to create a new CD/DVD that you can facilitate repairs with so post back if this is the case.

NOTE: If this is a torrent ver. of Vista you're on your own...