Dead laptop with pictures on it

[GIYess]

Hi all, I would describe myself as moderately tech savvy. But something is beating me at the min.
My wife has a laptop that she has had for around 6yrs and it has been dropped, stood on all sorts. The charger port stopped charging the laptop a couple of months ago and when I tried to take the cover off to check if the wires had severed, the whole thing just disintegrated.
I got the Windows 10 hard drive out and connected to my laptop (Windows 8). I can get to the point where I see the user file which contains all the docs but it will not let me in to that file. Any ideas? 4yrs worth of children growing up on there so pretty anxious.

[Nimby]

Is it saying something like you don't have permission?

If so you'll have to take ownership; right-click the folder, properties, security, advanced. It will probably say "unknown owner" at the top so change it to "everyone".

[crofty1984]

Or there are companies that specialise in recovering data. Ok they may not be working during lockdown, but it's an option and not mega expensive.

[GIYess]

Thanks for the replies, typically after 2 evenings of trying and getting no where I went into settings tonight again and worked out how to do it. It kept saying I needed admin privileges but I went in and added another category in security settings to the file for "everyone."
Had me sweating for a while!

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Good result. Doubtless you'll (she'll) be backing up a bit more often!

[GIYess]

Haha it's one of those things I've been meaning to get round to but never have! Definitely learned our lesson!!

[Derek Smith]

That's the problem with experience. It comes just after it is needed.

Well done.

[spikeyhead]

My accountant once sent me an email begging for help to sort out a knackered hard drive, so I sent him this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7-6m2cE6JM

[98elise]

GIYess said:

Haha it's one of those things I've been meaning to get round to but never have! Definitely learned our lesson!!

Get a Gmail/Google account. Unlimited free photo and video back up. Also means all your photos are available on all your devices.

[Mr Pointy]

Or get a Drobox acount & just save everything to a folder inside the Dropbox folder.

[GIYess]

I have one of each. I didn't know google was free. What is the long term viability of these free cloud storage? Probably the safest method at the min for photographs.

[eltawater]

Always assume that at some point the service will go bang / be wiped accidentally / be threatened with a massive price hike. Never rely upon them as your only copy of something precious to you, just treat them as a conveniently accessible place to find a copy.