Switch user on live session gives "no passwd entry"

Question

I cannot access my Ubuntu-system anymore (see this question). Now I'm booting my computer with a bootable-Ubuntu-usb-stick, this works and I try to access my files to keep my files on the hard drive safe. But when I try to copy the files to an external drive I get the error message

The folder xxx cannot be handled because you do not have permissions the read it

So I tried it command line by first trying switching user (the owner of the files), but this gives:

No passwd entry for user 'waanders'

I cannot access my own files, please help.

Solution

The UID of the files' owner might be different from 1000, which is the uid of the first user created. You can use the stat command to determine it. You can:

• use sudo -i to become root (no password needed on live session) and access all the files. The simplest option.
• chown the files to UID 1000 - might be time consuming depending on the number of files.

• add a user with UID same as that of the files (say 1001):

  sudo adduser --uid 1001 foo
  

  Then switch to that user.

Comments

[waanders]

sudo -i did the trick. Thanks a lot!