It may not be as difficult as you might think. If it has been rained on, you may have a very difficult time getting it started. However, everything you need is on the hard drive. All you have to do is remove the back and then remove the hard drive. Take that hard drive to any computer store, Best Buy if you have one, and they can download everything that is on that hard drive to a thumb drive. The problem with this solution is that it will be somewhat expensive to do. A small computer company may be able to do it cheaper for you. If I were the one you did this for, I would reimburse you for your expense and I would guess the old owner would as well. All of my contacts are on my computer as well as many e-mails I would like to keep. (Yes, I do a back-up once a month...but most don't.) BTW...when you get the transfer done, you might just get them to transfer the e-mails since that is where you will get the owners address. Also, you may want to open those e-mails with someone else present to prove you did not read confidential e-mails. You only opened the first e-mail they wrote to someone else to get their address. You never know if the owner is going to be as nice as you and while I doubt you would lose a law suit, you would have to defend it and that would be expensive. (Sorry to bring that up) Good luck with your decision.