So I work at an IT company, and a customer came in with a macbook that wasn't working. Taking the most cost effective course of action will mean simply recovering the files from the hard drive. I've connected it to another computer running linux mint. The problem is that now its saying that I don't have the right permissions to copy the clients user folder to the clients usb drive. I'm pretty new to linux, and nobody else in my office really knows what to do (we deal mostly with windows). My guess is that I either need to a) run some kind of chown cmd (tried this a little bit, but I don't think I entered it correctly) or b) install an app that will do a simple click and drag/edit.

Can anybody help me?

First are you the root user?

it a matter of cp -aR /directory /<to mounted usb>

With Mint you would use 'sudo' to prefix the copy command you use which gives root privileges. That is if Mint is properly installed and has the default user with sudo permissions. I would expect you get that error when copying to the usb drive? Or do you also get it when trying to access the files you want to copy?

Some info on the subject at the link below. Also, do you have the hfsplus software installed which enables access/write to a mac fs? I seriously doubt it is installed by defaults.

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

Lets start from the beginning. Just guide me to the next step you "experienced" people would take.

I'm including some basic screenshots that I took trying to access the clients files. Oh, and please be kind, linux noob here.

https://goo.gl/photos/mu1DGvPmdjWWS32T8

Well, you are pretty much forced to use a terminal to do this. I have done this in the past on a broken Mac, and this is pretty much how I got access to the files:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/33231...s-to-os#332317

Best regards,
HMW

Running the file manager as root could allow you to view and copy the contents of those directories with a graphical interface since the root user can do pretty much what he/she wants.

The file manager Mint uses is called Nemo. To run it as root, open either a terminal or the cinnamon menu at the bottom left of the screen and type

Then, navigate to the mounted Macbook and you should be able to view and copy the contents.

1 members found this post helpful.

Currently trying this, will let you know how it goes.

This worked wonderfully, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

No problem!