Help me and I will shower you with gits...

I am trying to recover files after an unmountable boot volume crash.
I am running XP home SPII on a Toshiba Laptop.

1) I received an unmountable boot volume error.
2) I ran XP repair and it did nothing.
3) I ran check disk and fixboot, no help there. It found unreadable/un-recoverable errors.
4) I Booted from a live linux CD called Knoppix.
5) I was able to then copy some of my files from my laptop to an external USB HD.

One of my user accounts and all it's folders were not there to copy?
This user account is password protected, would this cause me not to see these files from inside knoppix? If these files are hidden how do I copy these or unhide them?

* some things of note, I can't boot from my external USB HD. I am purchasing an adapter to to view the laptop HD from the desktop. My next step is going to be to try "pci_filerecovery.exe" on the laptop HD.

Maybe the files were infected by something and they aren't hidden, but deleted? Have you ever had a user account vanish from the HD?

Thanks so much, I would be willing to pay someone for phone support if need be.