Retreiving files: The hard way

Internal hard drive of a laptop, 2 months old, suddenly deleted the OS partition. Its still being detected by bios, so i was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to boot something small off a usb, then gain access to the files? Im sending it back under a waranty claim to Asus as a hard drive defect (The restore partition is missing half the files needed) but im really hoping to retrive priceless family photos off the laptop before sending it back, as once i do, i know the usual procedure, just replace the hdd.

Only reason im asking is because i cannot take the hdd out without voiding the warranty. Would be so much easier to just chuck it in a hotswap bay on my pc...

You could try any of the Linux LIVE distros if you have a disk drive, if not, there are ways to boot them off of a flash drive.

Just google "linux live usb" and you should find some options on how to do it, I can't recommend any specific distro, because I am not too familiar with linux.