Not exactly a newb, but I suspect this will be a relatively simple question.Or I hope. I have a broken laptop with a Fedora install. It will no longer boot Fedora. Now I'm sure I could probably try to fix the Fedora install and go from there, but honestly, the laptop is junk (broken keys, dying screen, etc) All I really want is some pics from the old HD. I made a Mint uSB drive to liveboot, only to come to the realization I cannot access the files as they're in a folder I don't have permissions to. Obviously I know the username and password, but I'm not sure how to actually gain access. Anyone got any input? Thanks.

Is the old hard drive encrypted? If not, then it doesn't matter. Root (or "sudo" as the case may be) on your live distro will be able to access anything on the old drive with full permissions, as if it was the owner.

To pull data off of an old unencrypted Linux hard drive, you need only boot into a live Linux OS or pull the hard drive and plug it into another machine with a working Linux OS. Then just become root, mount the drive, and copy everything you want off of it.

Tried that to no avail. When I try to open a folder I get a message stating that I do not have permissions necessary to view the contents. Any other ideas?

NVM. I missed the "open as root" option upon right clicking. I think I'm in business. Thanks a bunch man.