Well I'm an oldy, so my music collection began (and to some extent, mostly remains) on vinyl, where the only damage a computer can do to it is if you throw one on top of it, then CDs, again the same. When online music was born (remember Audiogalaxy? Ah, those were the days...) I began downloading and quickly realised that one copy of this music I had obtained, at the time for nothing, would never do.
So I made a backup. Then a backup of the backup. Then a backup of the backup of the backup. I took one backup into work, left it in my desk drawer. I made a point of uploading another backup to my website. Just to be sure, I made another backup and put it away. You can never have enough backups.
As to your question about the drive, why can't you just hook it up to the IDE or SATA cable on your new PC and use it, or at least copy off what you need? What exactly happened to it?
Oh, and one final word, which I almost forgot and haven't mentioned once here, but it's important.
Backup.
