Should I Attempt this Myself - Hard Drive Slave?

Some of you will recall from my prior thread that I had hard drive problems involving dead segments in W XP Pro.

It looks like the person who was going to help me recover my data is going to flake-out on me. Some suggested that I replace the drive and recover my data via slaving. (I don't know the exact terminology here.)

Here is my question: If I go the route of replacing my drive with something I bought off of the shelf, and "slaving" it over to the replacement drive pc, is this something that I can do myself, or should I resort to something like the big box stores' help services?

Thanks for your suggestions.

-A