I don't know if this will help, but there is a bootable CD-ROM version of Linux, for system repair and recovery. It is SystemRescueCD, available from
www.sysresccd.org, it is listed on the Distrowatch website.
Please note that I have not used this personally, so I can not vouch for its effectivness!
I do however, use PCLinuxOS as my main OS, and have used the live cd version for fault diagnosis on Linux and Win systems.
Hope you get your data back!