How to access /home files using a Live CD?

[Nixie Pixel]

So I managed to screw up my Windows XP Pro 64-bit installation, and I ended up deleting its partition. On a tangent, I thought it was highly ironic that on my HDD I had 4 partitions, one NTFS and three used by Ubuntu (swap, /, /home), and I had to use GParted to recreate the primary partition with NTFS because Windows' partition manager was informing me that I had reached the disk's "partition limit" and couldn't make another partition. I have since reinstalled the O/S but as this was the boot partition my boot manager is now gone.

Since I wanted to try Jaunty Jackalope on the computer (and try EXT4) I was going to move my data to my second hard drive from my /home partition. There isn't a lot of it, so I thought it would be easy. Only when booting from the Live CD I can't access the data because I don't have permissions to do so.

So how do I get permissions to copy my data? Alternately, how do I recreate my Grub bootloader so I can boot to Ubuntu again, copy my data over, and then wipe it out and install Jaunty using the EXT4 file system?

Thanks!

[taurus]

Open a terminal from the LiveCD and run nautilus with root privilege. That would let you move all your files to another harddrive.

Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal

gksudo nautilus

And if you want to reinstall GRUB to MBR again, here is a link.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

[Nixie Pixel]

Thank you! I would "Thank" you but the function doesn't seem to be working at the moment. :D

[elpix]

I have a similar problem, I was doing an upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 only it didnt work, after login nothing happens.
I want to do a new install, but before that ( a bit late...)
Im tryng to retrieve my data, so I am using a live CD, I can read the partition but certain files( My baby daughter pictures!!!) are locked.
the gksu nautilus command doesnt seem to do the trick (it opens a file browser window).
Can anybody help.
And another question, if I install over my old ubuntu, on the same partition where intallation and data are housed, will my files be preserved_
Thank you

[taurus]

I have a similar problem, I was doing an upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 only it didnt work, after login nothing happens.
I want to do a new install, but before that ( a bit late...)
Im tryng to retrieve my data, so I am using a live CD, I can read the partition but certain files( My baby daughter pictures!!!) are locked.
the gksu nautilus command doesnt seem to do the trick (it opens a file browser window).
Can anybody help.
And another question, if I install over my old ubuntu, on the same partition where intallation and data are housed, will my files be preserved_
Thank you

Yes, gksudo nautilus will open a file browser window (with root privilege) so you have to navigate to where your photos are on the harddrive, assuming you have already mounted it. Even if those photos are locked (they own by user 1000, your original user when you installed Ubuntu, while Ubuntu LiveCD is ubuntu), you should still can access them from the LiveCD unless you changed the permissions so nobody can view them except you, the only user from the machine.

[elpix]

Thank you Taurus, but the problem I have is that Nautilus only navigates to either

root ( of the CD)
Desktop (CD)
File system (cd also), and
Trash

but cant seem to open

disk

where my data is, that I can see in another file browser and in desktop, it doesnt show when i get to home/ubuntu/desktop though

Sorry for the inexperience and the lack of terminal skills

[taurus]

Can you post the outputs of these commands from a terminal?

Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal

sudo fdisk -l
df -h
That should be a lower case letter L, not number 1.

[elpix]

Taurus,
Thanks for the reply, sorry I didnt get back to you sooner,
Below are the results from

sudo fdisk -l
df -h

hope it helps you help me.
Appreciate it.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x48000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 11 88326 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 12 1317 10485760 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1317 7874 52665344 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 7875 9730 14901696+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 9403 9730 2620416 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 7875 9402 12273628+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 501M 16M 486M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
tmpfs 501M 16M 486M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile
varrun 501M 96K 501M 1% /var/run
varlock 501M 0 501M 0% /var/lock
udev 501M 116K 501M 1% /dev
devshm 501M 0 501M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 501M 12K 501M 1% /tmp
/dev/sda6 12G 11G 713M 94% /media/disk
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[drs305]

elpix,

It appears disk is already mounted on /media. You should be able to access the contents with:

gksudo nautilus /media/disk

If you are on the LiveCD and it isn't mounted:


sudo mkdir /media/sda6 # or disk, or another mount point name
sudo mount /dev/sda6 /media/sda6
gksudo nautilus /media/sda6

[nitrofurano]

well i do 'sudo nautilus --no-desktop' ....

[presence1960]

Thank you Taurus, but the problem I have is that Nautilus only navigates to either

root ( of the CD)
Desktop (CD)
File system (cd also), and
Trash

but cant seem to open

disk

where my data is, that I can see in another file browser and in desktop, it doesnt show when i get to home/ubuntu/desktop though

Sorry for the inexperience and the lack of terminal skills
mount the disk BEFORE you open nautilus