Righto,

inside your casing is a normal computer hard disk drive :



In a casing thus looking like this :

Now, if you can get the drive out of the external casing, put it in an anti static bag if possible, or a food freezer bag very tight so no moisture can get in, then slap it in the freezer for 24 hours.

Undo the screws on the back side of the tower case (modem for the real illiterate pc cunts) and take the side panel off.

Inside you will see the componants of your pc

Now, there will be an ide cable that runs from the motherboard to your hard drives and cd-roms :

One end plugs into your motherboard, and the other into your hard drive or cd rom. With most cables you can have 2 drives plugged in ( 2 x hard drives or 2 x dvd drives etc)

All you have to do is plug the "external" hard drive onto one of the ide cables, either from the cd-drive or current hard drive making a chain. You have to check jumper settings tho, which is a little bit of plastic on some pins on the drive :

and on the drive there will be a diagram of how to set them. Master, Slave, and Cable Select. Think of this as 1, 2, and whatever the pc wants. Your drive with windows on will probably be a master, so set the external one as a slave. It should plug and play and be recognised in my computer.

You will of course need sufficiant space to transfer the data across.

I cannot guarantee how long the drive will be active for, or that it's not
already shagged beyone repair. If you don't live too far away I will quite happily come and have a butchers, but I can't guarantee much

HTH