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You could use something like an Ubuntu Live which allows you to boot into Ubuntu using a CD or USB (no install). It's normally pretty good at mounting drives if they're readable. If the drive appears, you can have a look and see what's on it, you could mount an external drive and copy any data across, if it doesn't appear, it's probably dead.
Still tempted to just bang Windows on the Data drive and run it until death. I'm just worried that might be sooner rather than later if it's component death time. Who's to say a mobo issue didn't kill the drive or the power supply or something?