Can't access My Documents on external drive...

In an attempt to recover data off failing laptop, I've put my HDD into an external enclosure. Can view all files, but when I try to open My Documents (what I need), I get an access denied message. I did have a password on the laptop, but don't know how to get around this. I can't drag the folder into Shared Documents for the same reason. I did manage to boot the drive on another laptop enough to get into the setup before it gave me the usual message of doom, but set up told me that there were no passwords enabled. To be safe, I entered passwords of zero value, but no change. Please help if you can, there is a lot of stuff on there I really need. A good lesson in backing up for sure...

 

Thanks Halo,

It did help. Thanks a lot. What I ended up with is the ability to copy the files from the external to the drive of my new laptop. I still could not open the files from the external drive. Isn't this unusual? I do appreciate the help, and at least I'm out of the woods...