"Permission Denied" when using Ubuntu live cd to recover thunderbird files.
 

On a crashed notebook that formally ran a dual boot vista/ubuntu8.10 setup, I'm trying to use an Ubuntu 9.04 live cd to copy my mozilla-thunderbird files to a usb drive. That is really the only thing that I would like save before I reformat the whole drive and install "jaunty".

Unfortunately, when I attempt this with the file browser, I receive this message:

"The folder ".mozilla-thunderbird" could not be copied because you do not have permission to read it." (I assume it's because I'm logged in as Live Session User...?)

Is there some way to log in as an "owner" on a live CD to get permission?
Is there a way to perform this action though the terminal without permission?
is there another live cd I should be using for this?
...or am a way of track?

Thanks

login as root or do su or sudo

Can you use sudo on the live cd? or login as root? In either case that should get you access to all files. If you can't do it with a Ubuntu live disk then try a knoppix live CD. If memory serves me you can access all the files with that.
cheers,
jdk

I think the problem lies in how the harddrive is mounted. I guess it's mounted as readonly.
What does the following command return for you?

Just use a root terminal, as suggested, login with "sudo su"

A file browser may not be able to do it, but the term can-

Just use either the move or copy commands,
so, if the files are in your home folder and your usb is mounted and the partition is mounted-try this;
"sudo su"

"mount rw /dev/hda1 /media/disk" Or "mount rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1"

"cp -apR /media/disk/home/files-u-want /media/usb0"
This assumes the hd partition is mounted on "/media/disk" and the usb is mounted on
"/media/usb0".

Also, this is using a Ubuntu livecd-8.04

I kept getting "permission denied" using move and copy commands. I bet it's because the partition and usb were unmounted. I just ended up just using knoppix and it worked fine.
Thanks