What state is the old laptop in? Will it power up still? If not, you'll need to check and see what type of hard drive it has and if it is removable or not.

It's a Lenovo 510, semi functional but wine stuck keys - winkey in particular - prevent me from doing much with it...

OK, if it boots and is on the network, you may be able to access the C$ share from another laptop. This will give you access to the entire C drive. Should then be fairly straightforward to access your wife's profile and copy the files across. Applications will have to be reinstalled unfortunately. If you can't access the C$ share, maybe plug in an external keyboard and use that to share the folders you want to copy across?

Cheers Dave!!

I tried a Bluetooth keyboard with null effect, got the virtual keyboard up and can see the winkey is permanently depressed, I may try a USB keyboard and try to disable the onboard keyboard, hopefully it'll do the trick...

Simplest would be remove the hard-drive and put it in a USB enclosure, but if you had one you'd probably be doing that already. I've found cheaper ones unreliable, so if you're going to buy one check the reviews and err on side of better quality.

If disconnecting the keyboard doesn't work, perhaps a live Linux USB can get you in and might not care about Super key being permanently pressed.

BP speaks sense; but maybe first try removing the drive from both lappies and stick the old drive straight into the new one. It probably won't have the drivers to boot, but it'll take little time and do no harm to try.

Got a USB keyboard to plug in?

I have one /somewhere safe/...

Might make things easier for copying off!


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jedel-Standard-Keyboard-Optical-Bundle/dp/B076YY5L8P/

Cheers!

I did write a fairly lengthy reply but seemingly the emoji after cheers excluded the rest of the message...

:'(

d'oh!

Did you type something bad about Peter? Filter.