When using Ubuntu live CD, files and folders cannot be copied or moved due to permissions

Solution 1:

It's not a great question for this site as it doesn't have much to do with Ubuntu, but I guess you are planning on using a live Ubuntu session so I'll try to answer. I can do this from a dual boot computer (ie manipulate files in the Windows partition and a separate Windows drive) - I've not specifically tried it in a live session with 2 Windows drives but I think it will work. I'm not sure why you would want to do this this way but that's none of my business!

You need to mount your two windows partitions in read write, not read only mode (which is the default). It will only allow you to do this if your Windows system has shut down completely and is not hibernating - you must disable fast start up.

(To disable fast start up from Windows, click on start / settings / system / Power and sleep settings / Additional power settings / Choose what the power buttons do / Change settings that are currently unavailable / uncheck the box allowing fast start-up)

If you can't disable fast start-up (ie if you can't get into Windows), Ubuntu won't let you write to the disk / partition as it is considered in an unsafe state - so you will only have read access.

Then start a live Ubuntu usb session (I assume you know how to do that but post if not).

Once you're in the live session, identify your Windows (NTFS) hard drives' current mount points: open a terminal (ctrl-alt-T) and type df. You should be able to identify the hard drive letters (my windows partition is /dev/sdb3).

If it's mounted, I think best to unmount it first (I think you can do a remount command, ie unmount and remount all in one go but I'm more confident unmounting and mounting again manually): mine is mounted in /media/will/OS so I unmount by typing

sudo umount /media/will/OS

You should then be able to mount in read write mode; first create the mount point (sudo mkdir /media/MrPubzz/Windisk1 for example)

Then mount it as read write: sudo mount -o rw /dev/sdb3 /media/MrPubzz/Windisk1

Do the same for your other drive with a different mount point (eg /media/MrPubzz/Windisk2)

You should then be able to read / write access to both and copy / delete files on either disk with Nautilus or the command line.

Thanks to sudodus for confirming that this should work from a live session.