If you have no system on your hardisk , you must install a system (dos, windows) to recover data on your harddisk or enter , with a system floppy disk ( f.e. winme , win 98 , win95 startup disk ) and use dos commands to recuperate your data files . You cannot recuperate formerly installed programs of an os that isn\'t there anymore,because those installations are deleted with your system registry . .If your w2k partition is a fat 32 partition I see no real problem to enter from dos .