Rockdrummer is right, safe mode will NOT work. The idea of safe mode is to disable most of the drivers and application and go into "basic" mode so that you could fix application problems or whatever. It does NOT mean fixing the password problem, if safe mode is a way to fix password problem most of hackers will just waltz in and get in your computer and screw your computer, would you want that? It was never intended to fix the password problem.
Its been 6 days with bombarding of solution that I see will NOT work for sure. Once it is locked and passworded in NTFS format, it is MUCH harder to retrieve and I know it from early days of my fooling around with windows. If the files are formatted in FAT16/32 then it won't be problem just to retrieve files though DOS floppy disk or start up CD. But the way it looks like NTFS, the files is locked up until the orignal password is used and gain access then these files will be able to open up to retrieve.
One suggestion that I have tried and work well is that get 2nd hard drive, then set the old hard drive as slave, and have 2nd hard drive as master then install windows in there then there are good chance you may be able to retrieve some of files, but no guarantees. Today hard drives aren't as expensive as it was then! 
