Ten years is a good age for a PC. If your operating system has failed then you probably loose any software on your drive unless you kept all the original disks and codes. You may not have lost all your data.

A linux bootable disk should, if your bios allows booting from a DVD and if you have a DVD player, allow you to look at your hard drive. If you also have a USB drive then you might be able to copy files from your system onto that. If you are lucky your hard drive will still run enough for you to copy the files you want onto the USB drive.

This is exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if it was a problem with the disc, or what, but I was able to rescue several gigabytes of data and transfer it all to another machine.

If you know someone who is a bit of a computer wiz (or nerd) or who has a child or grandchild of the same ilk ask for their help. Going to a computer shop could be a bit of a gamble. A shop's best outcome will be to sell you a new computer, not necessarily get your data back.

Then again after ten years a new computer is not a bad idea.