I would put the drive in another desktop and set it as a slave, then network that desktop to your laptop. Do you have any friends who have built their own PCs?
Another option is
something like this, which you just plug your hard drive into and hook up to a USB port. I don't have any experience with external drives but it should work.
This is all assuming your hard drive isn't dead. If you're unsure, I'd bet that any place that repairs computers could help you out pretty easily.