Ah right - yes, desktops are a lot more robust.
Pretty much guarentee the drive in the laptop is fine.
Depending on the ,model you can just remove a panel to get at the drive, some of the newer models you need to remove every single screw in the base, then remove the rubber feet and take those screws out, then remove the battery and remove the screws in there as well - and then you can remove the entire plastic base.
I usually install dead laptop drives into little usb caddies.
https://www.amazon.com/Storite-Sata-...external+caddy

As long as it's not windows 10 you can usually access the files on the drive with no effort. Windows 10 has a habit of locking everything and you then need data recovery software to retrieve it. This stuff is pretty good: https://www.minitool.com/data-recovery.html
I use their free partition software.