Ubuntu :: Copy Files From A Non Working Install?

My father in law had a problem with his Ubuntu system. After quite some playing around, we discovered that an update had damaged or removed the graphics driver and the system was stuck in non graphics mode. This thread refers: [URL] Rather than spend much more time trying to figure out how to re-install a graphics driver without a graphical user interface, I decided to cut my losses and re-install Ubuntu. Before I did this though, I had some files to recover. So I burned a Live CD and booted from that.

But my problem is that I can't copy all the files from the home directory of the hard drive. I get a permissions error when I try to copy or view the files. I'm assuming that, as the system does not see I'm the original user, that it won't let me access the files. This must be a fairly common problem, does anyone know how I can recover all the files? I just want to use the live CD to provide a working OS to allow me to copy and paste the files onto an external HD. The Live CD is actually the Lubuntu variant, I wanted a real lightweight OS to use on a live CD. I assumed that wouldn't make a difference. Oh, and of course, if there is a real simple solution to my original problem of a broken graphics card driver, I'd be interested in that too.