Access denied to all /home folders after "downgrade"

[dedanna1029]

64-bit Mageia 3 wasn't working for me, had a lot of errors, and serious things to deal with, so I tried downgrading back to 32-bit MGA3, which didn't work after several attempted installs. Needing to get something up and running, I pulled out the MGA2 disk and installed it. The installation went flawlessly, except now I have no access to any of my files in /home (I did not format /home; I did not have backup space again *sigh).

I've run:

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[root@dedanna ~]# chown -R dedanna: /home/dedanna

With the following results (snipped for length) for Documents alone (this doesn't mention the rest):

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[dedanna@dedanna ~]$ ls /home/dedanna/Documents
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/XXX: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/menu.lst: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/XXXX: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/xxxxxx.xxx: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xspf: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/My Videos: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/package_list.pl: Permission denied
ls: cannot access /home/dedanna/Documents/XXXXXXXXXXX.pdf: Permission denied

You get the idea. Then, all in red (again, snipped for length):

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020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf
Folder1
9.pdf
doc1.rtf
[email protected]
alternative-status-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com
Folder2
xxxxx-xxxxx.txt
PDF1.pdf
Black Forest Fire - Residences1.pdf
Black Forest Fire - Residences2.pdf
Black Forest Fire - Residences3.pdf
Black Forest Fire - Residences4.pdf
Black Forest Fire - Residences.pdf
PDF2.pdf
clementine-backup_09-04-2013
clementine-compile.txt
clementine.txt

Some of the file names have been changed for the purposes of the forum here, for privacy, as they are personal.

What do I need to do here, to gain access again? I can't even access them as root - I get the same errors (and again, the chown didn't work).

Thanks.

Edit: I've just noticed - the UID is the same at 500. Edit: Oh, wait, no it can't be 500 - isn't 500 not supposed to be used? Must've been 501? Am I correct?

[viking60]

it often is 1000 these days

[dedanna1029]

Screw it. I'm trying one more time on reinstall, if that doesn't get it then I'm giving up. This is my only way to get to download and install a new distro, so... after this I'm done for a good while. Way too tired and pissed off at this thing.

[dedanna1029]

That's it, I'm done. Another epic fail, soon as I started package installation. This is a bad month for everyone I know. I'm going to wait for another one. I've had it.