My gf's laptop is in really bad shape. I can still get it to work, but I bought her a new iPad and all she wants saved is all the pictures. What is the best way to get those pictures to the iPad? Not sure if I can use the CDRom drive or not.

Open a photobucket account and upload them there first to save them

Dropbox is the best option, AINEC.

https://www.dropbox.com/

I'm assuming you can still access the ipad via itunes?

If so just sync the whole folder(s) of the pictures then upload them to icloud.

If not dropbox probably the best option.