If it was your computer, and not actually your hard drive, I was able to buy (for about $20) a thing from Best Buy that you can insert your computer's hard drive into and then connect it to another computer with a USB and see all the things on that old hard drive. My computer's mother-board crashed, but I was able to remove it's hard drive - insert it into this gadget (sorry I don't recall the name) and essentially now I have another external hard-drive.