JC wrote

Is there a way to connect a laptop hard drive to desktop computer?

Yes, you need an adapter to convert the connector basically.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HD-108&cat=HDD
quite a few on ebay too
http://search.ebay.com/search/search...rclo=&saprchi=

I am having problems getting a restore CD to work on an IBM
thinkpad laptop computer. It has proprietary external CD rom
that does not want to play nice. I have a drive image of the
hard drive that I would like to get onto the laptop hard drive.

Yes, that is a viable way of doing what you want to do.