Old hard drive

My old computer is a compaq presario 1500 and my new computer is a sony vaio. (both are laptops)

My questions: I got a message that said "operating system not found" on my compaq and now it doesn't work. I want to get all my stuff (pictures, etc) off of that hard drive on onto my new computer. Is there anyway that I can hook my compaq hard drive to the sony laptop and get my info off?

I'm not a computer person so forgive my ignorance. Any advice you have would be great. (if you wouldn't mind can you send any info to my email: sendmespam@silly.people) Thanks.

Edit: Removed e-mail address -- Nodsu

A USB external hard drive enclosure/adapter should do the job nicely.

Simply remove your laptop's hard drive, install it inside of the enclosure or to the adapter and plug it in to your Sony's USB port...

Now here's the bad news... "No Operating System Found" means your MBR is gone (master boot record). This area also contains partition information. Partitions contain your file system. Your file system contains your files. It is very possible you have lost some if not all of your data.

I would strongly suggest running a drive diagnostic first to see what we were up against. A list of manufacturer utilities is here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7602.html