backing up files

Optykall · 07-19-2009, 11:20 PM

Okay, so here's the story. I tried to upgrade to the Ubuntu 9.04 release, and my computer fialed.. like ata1.00 err drdy status.. so i get a live cd and a portable hd, and boot. now i can view my files, but i can't move any of them to the hd. it's telling me i don't have the permissions. now i locked a few folders (like, right-click and changed permissions to none), and i can't get in to copy everything over to the hd so i can just clean the computer and reinstall. so, how do i do it?

mark_alfred · 07-19-2009, 11:31 PM

I'm guessing that most of the system files, like /etc, /usr, /opt, /bin/, /dev, /sys, and /root would be locked and impossible to get. However, your home directory is the most important one, since this is your user directory, and I'm thinking that it should be readable. Perhaps you can copy your user's home directory onto the portable hd, and then do a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04, and then copy the contents of the saved user's home directory from your portable hd onto the new install, thus saving most of your files.

Optykall · 07-20-2009, 12:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark_alfred

I'm guessing that most of the system files, like /etc, /usr, /opt, /bin/, /dev, /sys, and /root would be locked and impossible to get. However, your home directory is the most important one, since this is your user directory, and I'm thinking that it should be readable. Perhaps you can copy your user's home directory onto the portable hd, and then do a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04, and then copy the contents of the saved user's home directory from your portable hd onto the new install, thus saving most of your files.

The home directory is open. It's some of the directories within that are locked. My old files and music folders are locked, as well as my pictures and school documents.

mark_alfred · 07-20-2009, 02:30 AM

Can you boot up the messed up computer to the initial grub screen, and then choose the single user maintenance mode (aka recovery mode)? If so, go in, and log in as root (or sudo, or whatever it is that Ubuntu uses for its superuser). Then, you'll be in the command line. From here, do the following:

Code:

ubuntu:/# cd /home/Optykall
ubuntu:/home/Optykall# chmod -R a+rw *

Note, I just called your user "Optykall" because that is your user name here. Use the correct user name that you've used on your Ubuntu system.

The first command is "cd", or change directory, to go to your user's home directory (where your old files, music folders, pictures, and school documents are located). Once here, the next command is to change the permissions recursively to make all the files in your user's home directory public (all users will have read and write privileges to the files in the directory). You would then be able to move the files to the portable hd, via the liveCD.

If the grub maintenance/recovery mode is not available, perhaps as root user with the liveCD, you could do the same thing, and then be able to move the files to the portable hd.