We have copied a drive that had a db on it and I need to open the db on a new server Before I got here, they copied the old servers drive to an external disk.  Then they blew away the old server.  Now that they have a new server and SQL 2012 is installed, they would like to see the db that was on the old server.  How would I go about restoring the db thats copied to the external drive to the new server?  The old db is 2008 r2.
Assuming your database had its MDF and LDF files hosted locally, you should look for these files.
Once you've found your MDF and LDF files you can attach them to the new SQL server using:

USE master;
GO
CREATE DATABASE MyDatabase 
    ON (FILENAME = 'C:\MySQLServer\MyDatabase.mdf'),
    (FILENAME = 'C:\MySQLServer\Database.ldf')
    FOR ATTACH;
GO


MSDN article about attaching MDF and LDF files