My Ubuntu machine power connector died and I need to take it to repair, but I want to backup my data first. I took out the hard drive and connected it via Hard drive enclosure to another machine which is running Windows. Windows cannot see the drive at all so I booted Ubuntu from USB drive. Then I can see all the files and folders but for a lot of them I do not have access. I tried to do this: "Press Alt+F2 to bring dash command prompt. In that window, type gksudo nautilus. This will open nautilus with root permission." but it doesn't seem to work - when I type in gksudo nautilus it shows an icon with gears and "gksudo nautilus" written underneath but nothing happens when I double-click it.
Sorry for my ignorance!
xhostcommand line andsudo -H nautilusfrom a terminal window. There are also other alternatives. See this link, Why don't gksu/gksudo or launching a graphical application with sudo work with Wayland? – sudodus Mar 26 '18 at 12:48