Depends on if the MAC can read the PC hard drive. As I understand it, a MAC can read NTFS, but cannot write it (so you won't easily be able to move the data back to the PC (if you use a FAT32 external drive on the MAC you may be able to write to it - but will be restricted to files no larger than 4gB).
I'd suggest borrowing a friends computer and getting an external hard drive ($50-$60 US in most shops, likely cheaper online) and transferring things that way.
Another option is to see if you can use a tool like the Ultimate Boot CD or a Live Linux distribution to copy from the broken PC to an external hard drive.
There's basically 3 levels of data recovery:
1 - copying the stuff from the old hard drive to other media (such as another computer or an external hard drive)
2 - using software to help recover data (tools like PCInspector (free) or GetDataBack ($80 US))
3 - professional data recovery where they dismantle the hard drive and move the platters to another hard drive (very, very expensive)
So, we try #1 - if that doesn't work, then we move on to either #2 or #3 depending on the symptoms.
