My netbook crashed and am looking for something that I can probably place on a usb flashdrive and give me access to my files before I do a system restore? Any suggestions?

when you say crashed do you mean it wont boot or have you a virus or something
have you tried booting up in safe mode turn on computer and press F5 then select safe mode
or try booting from cd to see if that fixes the problem if you can give us a bit more info that would help