'Don't have permission to cop files
 

While copying files from my retired desk top hard drive to the new machine and Ubuntu 14,certain files cannot copy across because of 'permissions denial.
One such is the CUPS folder

When installing Ubuntu I am/certain that administrator was selected.
Or perhaps is it the oold drive that is being awkward?

A utility might be configured to allow users other than the default manipulate it as "administrators" but if so it is the utility that is doing it and not a change in OS level permissions. So if your cupsd is running as user root and the /etc/cups directory is owned by root and grouped to lp with only those users/groups having "permissions" on the directory or its contents then only the root user and/or members of the lp group might be able to copy files or create them from command line even though the cups admin access in browser is configured to allow other users admin rights within the cups utility itself.

Worse comes to worse, boot to a live media and get the files.

Thank you both,will work on your suggestions
J