Edit: Following this post fixed it. My layout was still preserved as well.

Bear with me please, this is a long story.

So I was testing using an SSD from my old laptop as an external drive, using an adapter plugged into my newer laptop. I tried to access my personal folder under C:/Users/<name> and recieved a popup message saying that I didn't have access, click continue to grant myself access, which I did. I was now able to access the personal files on that folder.

After testing, I put my SSD back into the old laptop. Upon login however, windows could not log in properly so it logged me into a temporary account. I tried restarting the laptop and saw a message that windows was doing some repairs to the disk. When I logged in again, the same issue happened again, but this time I was immediately greeted with a message saying I don't have permissions etc...click continue to get permissions. It didn't specify what folder it was for though.

This is where I think I messed up big: I once again clicked continue to grant myself access while I was using the tempory account. I restarted the laptop and I was finally able log in properly (no tempory account). However, everytime I click the start menu, I get a "Critical Error - Your Start menu isn't working. We'll try to fix it the next time you sign in." I've signed out and back in with no luck.

I then saw that the owners and permissions on C:/Users/<name> personal folder were messed up so I tried to change the owners of everything in that directory to my user account. Didn't work.

I can't be certain, but I think the owners or permissions may have been altered else where in my C:/ drive back when I tried to grant my self permissions while under a tempory account.

So I tried running the "icacls * /t /q/c /reset" command in C:/ to reset all access permissions but most folders/files get an "access denied" or "the system cannot find the path specified".

I know I've pretty much dug myself into hole, but I'm hoping someone here can deliver a miracle solution. I don't want to have to reinstall windows if it can be helped.