Data Recovery

I have an eMachines T2542 with XP OS. The motherboard died (at least enough to drag the integrated audio & video down with it - verified by switching monitors, cables, etc) and I ended up purchasing a new Lenovo with Vista OS. I'd like to get some of the data off the XP HDD, but am not sure if I can use the new machine to do it. Is it as simple as strapping the XP HDD to slave and plugging it into an expansion slot on the Lenovo? Will it show up as a second drive without conflicting the OS?