I'm having a problem with XP System Restore on my Dell Dimension 4500 running Windows XP SP2.  I tried to run a restore this morning.  I started by going to a restore point from yesterday.  Upon completion, a  message said no restore occurred.  Fine.  I then went back to a restore point from earlier yesterday.  That one worked, but I realized I actually needed to go back even further.  So I then ran a restore using a restore point from two days ago.  That started out fine, but the system is now in a hung state, with a message reading "Restoring files" and a progress bar that shows about 90% completion.   It's been in this state for about 6 hours now, and counting, which clearly isn't normal.


I'm starting to think about different recovery methods, which all involve shutting down the PC in this state, and I have a couple of questions.

1. If I abort the System Restore, how likely is it I can repair Windows using the CD that came with my Dell, or more to the point, how likely is it I can repair Windows and salvage the data on the hard drive?

2. If #1 isn't likely, any chance I could remove the hard drive from this PC, install it as a secondary drive in a different PC running Windows, and read the data from the hard drive?

Thanks for any input.

joe.