unable to access partition from desktop or externally

[JohnnyMCE]

I am helping my cousin out and he has a strange issue I can't get around. He has a compaq desktop that is run xp media center edition. It has two partitions (a recovery partition and a user partition). I try to boot the machine and even if I choose safe mode the machine just keeps boot looping (for a split section I can see a blue screen). I pop the sata drive into an external enclosure to back data up before i try recovery and I can access and copy the recovery partition fine but if i just even try to check properties on the user partition my whole computer locks up. Of course he has work data on here so I am trying all i can to back up before i consider wiping things. Any ideas to help me at least back up before i mess around with recovery?

 

[Gunbuster]

Chkdsk?