Windows not working properly after copying files to another computer

After being away from my PC for a while, I wanted to copy over and replace a lot of files from my laptop to my PC, specifically folders such as Downloads and subfolders of AppData. I mostly only touched folders within my user folder and didn't, for example, copy my whole drive or anything like that (I also used the robocopy command for most folders with the /e, /copyall, and /dcopy:dat options if that matters at all). I previously had similar troubles with this, so I got an external SSD reader to connect my laptop's SSD to my PC without inserting it into a slot on the motherboard, which I figured could be a cause of those issues (specifically, I removed the SDD from my laptop, put it in the SSD reader, connected that to my PC, copied the files, removed the reader from my PC, and put the SSD back into my laptop). I was able to copy all the files I needed successfully, but unfortunately, my laptop once again had issues with the drive once I put it back in afterward.

The issue I'm now having with it is that my whole drive seems to be somewhat corrupted. I can boot into Windows just fine and also have access to all of my files as I normally would (e.g., can open folders without needing admin perms), but there seems to be something wrong with the permissions of the whole drive again. My start menu and search bar can't be clicked on, a lot of icons on my desktop are now blank, and trying to open a file with an app or program doesn't work (e.g. trying to open an image gives an error that says, "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access this item"). Although cross-referencing with my PC that's working totally fine, the permissions of the C: drive look the same and as they should be, as well as the folders in it like Program Files, Users, etc.

I've tried resetting the permissions of the drive with the icacls command, but get "access denied" errors. Does anyone know what I can do to fix this besides resetting the whole drive? If that's the only option, though, does anyone know how I can properly copy files from my PC to my laptop without having to deal with these kinds of issues afterward? Thank you.

Edition Windows 10 Home

Version 22H2

Installed on ‎1/‎19/‎2026

OS Build 19045.7663