Windows 7: cannot access data on laptop drive

i think the motherboard went out on my laptop (have a gateway nv53, turned it on one evening after using it that day and the power light came on, the cpu fan came on for a second, then nothing, no "no hard drive detected" no beeping, nothing. after taking it apart and trying to see if something came loose, i found nothing. i have a thermaltake backxduet internal drive docking station. I can see my drive, i can see everything on it, except what i really want, windows 7 puts everything in a library, i see it under user, my name, but if i click on the folder it tells me access denied. that is where all my photos and documents are, and that is what is important to me. I can get a motherboard for $150, but i dont know if it is the motherboard for sure or not, i am guessing since i get power, the cpu starts to heat up if left on for a while (amd chip) so i know the cpu is getting power, the fan is getting power, the monitor has a plug that i think i power, it is getting voltage, i also tried plugging in an external monitor and i had nothing. is there data recovery software that i need to buy to get that info?

Hello JD, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if taking ownership and setting permissions to "Allow" your account "Full Control" of the folder may allow you to have access.

Take Ownership Shortcut

OR

(Option Three)
Take Ownership of file

Hope this helps,
Shawn