I was attempting to add a new user/password and used the command "htpasswd -c /etc/passwd user1" which ended up wiping out the entire /etc/passwd file.

I know the contents of the old file because I used "cat" prior to overwriting it. Also there is a /etc/passwd- file. I am still logged in.

The problem is, when I try to "cp /etc/passwd- /etc/passwd" I don't have permissions. When I try to "sudo cp /etc/passwd- /etc/passwd" I get the reply "sudo: unknown uid 1000: who are you?"

A few suggestion on the Internet involve rebooting with makes we a bit worried I will get completely locked out. I am sure there is a solution somewhere on this forum, but I am in a bit of a panic now and have tunnel vision. Can anyone point me in the right direction to recover my passwd file?

Does pkexec cp /etc/passwd- /etc/passwd work?

Unfortunately, no...

failed due to unknown user id (1000)
User `root' does not exist.

In case you haven't already, make certain that you save a copy of BOTH /etc/passwd~ and the cat output so that whatever you end up doing you are able to recover to the old file.

Offhand I would say that trying to write /etc/passwd without any defined users is going to run smack into every basic protection against unauthorized modification of system files.

If it were me I think I would secure the aforementioned copies then boot to recovery media, mount the root partition then restore the file.

Assuming this is a local system to which you hae physical access, is that right? And it might be helpful to know what distro.

if you have a copy of /etc/passwd (which is definitely ok):
yes, boot a live CD or similar and restore the original file. Next time you will be able to boot again as usual.

I have physical access. It is my laptop running Mint 19. The system will not let me copy the /etc/passwd- file. I tried to copy to home partition and a jump drive. I have separate home and file system partitions. /etc is obviously on my file system partition. I am not really familiar with manually mounting drives as all on my drives are set to automatically mount.

I should be able to boot to recovery on this HDD I think. I also have the original Mint boot jump drive "Mint 18.2 UEFI boot" I used to install the OS a couple years ago.

Once I boot into recovery, what do I need to do to get access to /etc/passwd and /etc/passwd- files. Will root be ID 1000 by default?

Sorry, running Mint 18.2

in recovery mode you can have full access to /etc/passwd, so most probably you can overwrite it (as root). If it does not work please boot a live CD, mount your disk and restore the original file.
root has a user id 0 (zero). Do not attempt to modify it.

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Okay, just finished recovering now. Recovery and emergency mode do not work without a root entry in the passwd file for those of you keeping track. I had to boot with my USB stick drive. Good think I kept it around. It took me a while to figure this out because although USB booting was setup in the bios it was not working and I had to enter F12 on my dell to do a manual boot from USB. Then I was able to mount the drive. After rebooting to my restored system, file permission were messed up so I had to login as root and run chmod +r on the passwd file and reboot again. Now it looks like everything is restored. Thanks for everyone's help!

Thanks