I took my Ubuntu installed hard drive out of it's desktop, don't ask why. I took the hard drive to work.

Problem : Ubuntu 8.04 desktop at work can't access anything on this Ubuntu 7.10 hard drive. In fact it can't even read the partitions correctly, Logical partition management problem maybe, I haven't a clue.

The hard drive's home folder is storing some images and files I don't want to loose. Some time in the future I'd like to be able to access them. How would I go about doing that? Do I have to put it back into the original desktop? And why can't my Ubuntu even see the partitions correctly on the drive?

As a first thought it could be that version 7 is formatted ext2 and
your version 8 is ext3. Also you may not be running automount.
Hard to say with the little info you gave.

What I would do:
Put the drive back in the desktop system. Boot from a LiveCD and copy all
the important stuff to a flash drive.

If you need to use the 'work' system due to some hardware problem
double check the jumper settings on both drives. Boot up and as 'root'
type: fdisk -l (the letter L, lower case)
That should give you the info you need to 'mount' the second drive and
copy your files.

Hope that helps.

Well, you write that "In fact it can't even read the partitions correctly..." which tells me that at least your BIOS sees the drive. I might run e2fsck on the unmounted hard drive's partitions that you want that ~/ data from. Just to check for anything weird.

The only difference between ext2 and 3 is journalling, and maybe some driver enhancements. ext3 is completely compatible with ext2. You can even mount ext3 as ext2. Same file system structure on the drive. Ya know....Anyway, raw gave you a quick fix, and (s)he's got a point about little information provided.

I routinely add hdd's to my working Debian box upstairs (Ubuntu is based upon Debian): NTFS, fat16, fat32, ext2, ext3 -- reading them is never an issue. I do this to save or backup data for neighbors, customers. It should be a no-brainer -- let us know.

I am not at work, but I'll see if I can explain a bit better.

The hard drive from home has Ubuntu 7 on it and I honestly don't remember which filesystem.

At work, the above hard drive is installed as a "slave" on the jumpers. Ubuntu 8 recongnizes the drive and allows me to mount like 200mb of it...which to me seems like the old swap partition or something or some old fat32 partition, I don't know why Ubuntu 8 only sees 200mb or less "automatically". The rest of the dive is not "found" or not "automatically" recognized.

This could be because Ubuntu 8 needs some additional steps to see the drives other partitions or because of filesystem issues.

When I run for example gpart or some similar GUI, it doesn't even see the 200mb's that Ubuntu 8 automaticallly mounts. Gpart claims the drive is empty....it's all grayed out. Almost like gpart can't find any data on the drive at all.

When I get to work next monday I'll see if I have a second I'll try what has already been posted.

thanks

DId you forget that you encrypted the drive -- or you put an encrypted container within an encrypted partition? Just hazarding a guess here. Is your Ubuntu 7 slave drive connected to the slave position on your atapi cable?

In your BIOS have you looked for new partitions?