I would reccomend that you pop out the HD and put it in as a slave in a different computer. Then you can use the other computer to browse the drive and save the pictures. The problem could be that HDs should have between 10% and 15% free space, otherwise it can get...crowded and lock up.
You can try a defrag--I doubt that will work.
You could also try getting a copy of (or making a copy like I did) of
Bart's Ultimate Boot CD. If you have an external HD, you can plug it into your computer and boot off of the CD. It will have the drivers where it reads your external device--just be sure you plug in the device before you restart your computer.
From Bart's boot disk you can browse and copy your pics off of your HD.
Or you could try to delete a gig worth of stuff off of your comp.
EDIT: If you are getting low memory, you can use msconfig. Just go to start-"run" and type msconfig. On the startup tab, uncheck any program that you have installed that is not essential. When you install a program it sometimes runs in the background and uses memory. You can use msconfig to stop then from running.
Just don't turn off anything you don't know what it is--some of the processes are necessary. Try getting rid of anything with "update" in it, and anything like word, adobe, media players, et cetera.
