transfer broken laptop data

Hi folks newbie here so please be gentle.
Dropped laptop tripping over cat.
Screen broke so bought a new one.
old was xp new is vista.
bought a integral external hard drive thinking I could recover files.
this drive is not seen in my computer
Its seen in control panel but when iI try to initilize it says drive not ready
even tried swapping for the hard drive but new computer does not boot

please help

thanks

boydy