Booting up problems

I'm having trouble starting up my machine... When it first turns on, there is the option (for half a second) to Press F2 to go to set-up or F12 to change reboot order. If I don't choose either of those options, I am presented the following message:

"Chceking file system on C:
The type of the file system is FAT34.

One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue."

And then there's a count-down to opt out of checking it or not. Whether I press a key to skip check or not, the machine shuts down completely after 3 seconds. It is not an issue with the battery (I've done this with the power cord plugged in and it is fully charged). Any help would be greatly appreciated! I have school notes and documents on there that are very very important and need to be accessed!!

 

You can try booting Live CD from Ubuntu or any other linux flavor. From there you can browse your harddisk without affecting your computer.

You can also boot from external CD from your original OS and try the repair option.

 

FAT34??? more probably FAT32 ...