Hi Nicole and welcome to the Knoppix forums.

Quote Originally Posted by nicole2003 View Post
Do I need an older version of knoppix?
Older than 2003 ? No. Older versions of Knoppix had lots of disk icons on the desktop. The current version of Knoppix doesn't.

Whack your Knoppix CD into your naughty laptop's CD drive and boot up Knoppix. Stick a USB memory stick into a USB port.

In the bottom left corner of the desktop is a representation of a bird right where the Start button used to be on old versions of Windows (circa 2000). To the right of that is a icon that represents a squat chest of draws. Click on this icon to open an app that implements a file manager paradigm. You should see two panes. That smaller left hand pane has all the icons you miss from dear old Knoppix 5. Click on these at random until icons representing the root directory of your naughty Windows 7 drive appear in the larger right hand pane.

Click on the squat draws icon again to open a second file manager paradigm and click on disk icons at random until the root directory of your back up USB drive appears. Drag and drop your files off just as if your were under Windows 7.

If no disk icon corresponds to the root directory of your Windows 7 disk then it is quite possible that your Windows 7 laptop won't boot because the Windows 7 disk is as a dodo.