[SOLVED] Burning brain cells on moving user files ...

[Simon]

Here is the issue, I might be approaching this at the wrong angle. See what you think...

1. 250 GB drive from laptop, partition A is 210GB and partition B is 20 GB. Cannot boot linux from 20 GB Partition that still exists.
2. When booted with Live CD or booted in partition A, cannot access files in my old user space (home) and refuses to copy files from B to A.
3. I need to copy home/Simon/.config from old to new. However I hit the brick wall when trying to do this.

I am assuming I screw the pooch when I forgot those user files? Is there any way to migrate the files or do I need to reboot the old system from partition B?

Thanks guys!

BTW almost forgot, I have this desktop here I can place the SATA drive inside it. So that is another possible tool in the shed I forgot to mention.

[NickStone]

Is partition B the root partition?

[vinnywright]

boot what you can (partition-A) ,,,, log in ,,,,,, in konsole or krunner do

kdesudo dolphin

this will give you a root dolphin,,,, can you get into partition-B now ?

if yes copy the files over then check the permissions on them wile you still have your root dolphin ,,,,, if needed change them to you:you where "you" is your user name in the "A" install

VINNY

[SecretCode]

You can't boot from partition B and you can't access the files in partition B when booted another way? ... Can you mount partition B at all? It sounds like you might have a file system corruption. In which case, you may need powerful tools and under no circumstances should you try to boot from it or write files to it. (But if you can see files on partition B it will be something else.)

[Simon]

@Nick: It was before I decided I wanted to merge the partitions. My old laptop was a Win XP back in 2010 I made it dual boot K / Win XP. The 210 was the Win XP section and the 20 GB was enough for linux to kick about. It was a long time ago I blew off XP and went straight KDE 12.04. I decided it was time to move ahead and placed a fresh 14.04 on the larger partition. I thought the gurb was supposed to allow or grant me access to both OS but for whatever reason it just boots straight into 14.04. I could see the files just not allowed to move them because they no longer belong to me.

@Vinny: Thank you sir! That little trick worked like a charm. This old mule doctor thanks you very much, if you ever have a pain in the ass come see me.

Thank you too Secretcode, I just knew I could depend on you guys for an answer.

After a week or so, I plan to format and merge the smaller partition back into the one 250GB drive, well less the swap area of course. Frank was laughing at me cussing at it last night.

[vinnywright]

@Vinny: Thank you sir! That little trick worked like a charm. This old mule doctor thanks you very much, if you ever have a pain in the ass come see me.

LOL well if I ever find myself in the land of Chalk Drawings I will dust myself down proper and look you up

VINNY

[Simon]

Just marked this one solved.

I did end up figuring out what it was with the grub menu. I forgot to do; sudo update-grub That allowed me access to both old and new partitions. I finished moving files, also grabbed bookmarks from the browser and finished merging it back into a single partition.