Windows data recovery

I have a laptop whose Windows XP crashed due to disk failure. (Disk making knocking sounds during read/write). The laptop has very important field data that I am having difficulties recovering. Although I can read the disk while attached as a slave drive on a PC, I cannot access the user?s Document and Settings because the profile was secured by a windows login password.

How do I surmount this hurdle to access the data? Can anyone recommend a good data recovery tool that I can use when XP crashes due to disk failure or virus hit?

Any advice will be highly appreciated.

Thank you.