The laptop doesn't boot with the drive in the laptop. Not sure that the laptop is damaged beyond repair. The drive can be seen in a reader just I can't access the files as windows says I don't have admin access.
This is normal and to be expected.
It's an ownership / permissions issue, by design.
Basically, you need to do something called 'Take Ownership' of the files.
In Windows, all files have an Owner - typically the user who created them.
The actual system files will be owned by one of the System user accounts, not an end-user account.
But the User's files ( ie the files in the User's Profile eg C:/Users/Feanor ) will have that user as the Owner.
Then permissions are set such that another end-user has no permissions to read them.
This means that if multiple different people have user accounts on the same machine, they only have access to their own User Profie.
They will get Access Denied if they try to look at the files in someone else's User Profile.
And this is what's happening here.
The User Account on the working machine is not the same User Account as the one on the broken laptop which is the creator and Owner of these files.
So when logged into the working laptop, your User Account has no permissions to read the User Profile on the old drive which belongs to a different User.
However, as an Admin on the working host machine, you *can* force matters by changing the Owner of the User Profile folder and all sub-folders and files on the unreadable drive.
It's been a long time since I've had to do this myself, but the steps are something like this:
-Start Windows Explorer and browse to the User Profile folder,
-R-click the folder and select Properties;
-Security tab > Advanced button;
-Owner is listed at the top (It will probably not be a name, just a long number); click 'Change' link next to it.
-Click 'Object Types' button, and leave only 'Users' selected;
-Click 'Advanced' button, then 'Find Now';
-Select the User you are logged in as and who you want to Own these files now;
-OK your way back out of these windows till you get back to the main Security window,
-Check the option 'Replace all child object permissions...' (so it applies to all the sub-folders and files too);
-And then finally 'OK'. It may take a few moments to grind it's way through all the files.
Now as I said, I've not done this for a long time.
I just went through the steps here, but didn't hit the final OK!
It might be that modern Windows will have a but of a hissy at this point and need you to stand on your head a bit more, but that's the basic steps.
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