WinXP startup failure

I have a WinXP system. with 2 accounts both passworded.

The PC boots to a blank desktop.
In safe mode the desktop still blank with safe mode flags in corners.
Tried resore to last good configuration still as above.

I need to recover the files from the user accounts.

I am considering booting from a second good harddrive. How then do I get into a passworded user account on the original harddrive?