http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
you'd need a 64mb usb device to make a damn small linux bootable OS. The instructions there are pretty good.
if you have alarger device, you could put on something you may find more user friendly/feature packed, but a simple Damn Small Linux should be enough to see your files, I'm fairly sure it can see NTFS now. If nto maybe Puppy Linux can.