Since it's a laptop, it's not as easy to just pull the drive and grab the documents you want while it's connected to another computer.
If it were me in this situation, I would use a linux LiveCD and a USB hard drive to get the docs off there. Basically, a LiveCD allows a user to preview an operating system before they elect to install it onto their hard drive and make it "permanent". It loads the OS kernel into memory and runs applications off the CD Rom. If you drop one of those into your machine, then plug in a USB hard drive, you'll be able to access your Windows C: drive and basically just drag and drop everything you want onto the USB drive.
I use Ubuntu. Assuming you have access to another computer, internet connection and CD burner with good burning software, you can get the LiveCD image here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download
I'm sure there are other ways to do what you want to do. Lately this has been the easiest for me because its all grapical user interfaces much like windows and very easy to understand.