PC to Ipad external hard drive?

[Beest]

The power socket on Banana ladies laptop has come loose and dissapeared inside, her computer guy has fished it out, but has ordianed a new computer and she is going to get an Ipad.

I have snobbishly poo pooed apple products so don't know much about them practically, but I think this a good solution for her,

but all her digital photos are on the laptop, computer guy said he would take out the hard drive and put it in a case to connect to her ipad and still have access to her photos.

I would like to get the laptop, glue the power socket in place and have another computer about the place, i can replace the hard drive, but the windows installation will be on it.

My proposal is to get a new external hard drive and transfer the pictures to it. We're not talking 100's of Gigs, maybe 10 or 20, a decent sized USB would probably do it too.

but, pictures have to come off a PC and be available on an IPad. I see that external drives/sticks can work PC or Mac if in FAT32 format, but I think there are file size and name restrictions.

also I don't think Ipads have standard USB ports, so I would need an adapter.

Anybody know of any glaring holes in this plan or have a better idea ?