Can't access my drive

I connected my laptop hard drive to my PC via SATA, but I can't get it to open. It keeps giving me this error:

The location is unavailable.
E:\ is unavailable.
Access is denied.

Do I really need to format the drive? Is there any way to actually get into those files and just copy them over to my PC?

Check "Disk Management" first and see if all the partitions on that drive are actually showing up, because I have a feeling there's more going on than just E:\
Are you running Windows on both your main PC and that laptop (on his drive)?
Your best bet might be to boot into Linux from a USB stick, then try to access the drive and grab whatever files you need.

wearymason4 said:Check "Disk Management" first and see if all the partitions on that drive are actually showing up, because I have a feeling there's more going on than just E:\
Are you running Windows on both your main PC and that laptop (on his drive)?
Your best bet might be to boot into Linux from a USB stick, then try to access the drive and grab whatever files you need.

It isn't just E:\; there's also a G:\ drive that I can access without any issues. Both are running Windows 7..
Can you explain how that works with Linux?

You’ll want to grab windows from a site like this one https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=267

Do you know how to use Rufus to make a bootable USB drive?