Recover Data from External Hard Drive

My old lappy had a motherboard problem so I just got a new machine . I put the old lappy drive in a USB case and my new lappy can see the file structure.

My document folders are empty but they are there. When attempting to open it says "drive inaccessible, access denied." I've tried enabling file sharing like my google search indicated to do but that doesn't work.

All I want is to get my documents off the old lappy. All the data recovery programs I've downloaded either produce the same error message or prompt me to upgrade to their pro version.

Thanks for your help!