Problem with laptop after upgrade to Ubuntu 10

[StephenOK]

Hi Folks,

I'm having a severe problem with a laptop that I configured for a friend of mine:

He was upgrading from 9x to 10x without being plugged in to his power adapter.

I've used a live disk to access the drive on the machine, but when I try to copy the drive data, it keeps telling me I don't have permission. I know his admin password, but I can't find a way to enter it to resolve the permission issue.

Essentially, what I want to do is copy the critical data from the drive to an external h.d.d. and re-install the OS.

Can anyone offer any advice on this?

Much thanks in advance.

Best,

Steve

[StephenOK]

Hi:

Sorry, I had to bump this post. I'm thinking of trying to sink my friends laptop to my own ubuntu laptop via a firewire-usb configuration.

I'm really trying to save my friends' data on the machine, and I don't want to format without backing up that data.

Can someone please offer some advice?

Thanks in advance.

Best,

S.O.K.