ok the short version is i installed unbutu to my scsi hd.. i have 2 more ide harddrives but unbutu wont recognize them... i am very new to unbutu so please someone help without making me feel like a retard

Can you post the output of:

And you would type that command into a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). You can close the terminal by typing "exit".

Disk /dev/sda: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xfd90fd90

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 31381 252067851 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 31382 32003 4996215 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 32004 36481 35969535 83 Linux
b@bb:~$

It does only find the one drive. Have you got any idea which motherboard you have? Or could you post the output of the command lspci -v?

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 5001
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 0c11
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0

00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 0c11
Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel, IRQ 10
I/O ports at b400 [size=64]
I/O ports at 1c00 [size=64]
I/O ports at 1c40 [size=64]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 0c11
Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel

00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20
Memory at e9008000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
Memory at e9007000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32
I/O behind bridge: 00008000-00009fff
Memory behind bridge: e7000000-e8ffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: e2000000-e3ffffff
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device a002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 5002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0
[virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8]
[virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1]
[virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=8]
[virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1]
I/O ports at f000 [size=16]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device e000
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
Memory at e9004000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at b800 [size=8]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device b002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
I/O ports at 09f0 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0bf0 [size=4]
I/O ports at 0970 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0b70 [size=4]
I/O ports at cc00 [size=16]
Memory at e9005000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:08.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2) (prog-if 85 [Master SecO PriO])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device b002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
I/O ports at 09e0 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0be0 [size=4]
I/O ports at 0960 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0b60 [size=4]
I/O ports at e000 [size=16]
Memory at e9006000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 0000a000-0000afff
Memory behind bridge: e4000000-e6ffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d0000000-00000000dfffffff
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
Flags: fast devsel

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
Flags: fast devsel

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>

01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Davicom Semiconductor, Inc. 21x4x DEC-Tulip compatible 10/100 Ethernet (rev 40)
Subsystem: Unknown device 3030:5032
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
I/O ports at 8000 [size=256]
Memory at e8105000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at e7000000 [disabled] [size=256K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

01:07.0 Multimedia controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 4d50
Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device a698
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
Capabilities: <access denied>

01:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
Subsystem: Creative Labs Unknown device 100a
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
I/O ports at 8400 [size=32]
Capabilities: <access denied>

01:09.0 RAID bus controller: Integrated Technology Express, Inc. IT/ITE8212 Dual channel ATA RAID controller (rev 13)
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 19
I/O ports at 8810 [size=8]
I/O ports at 8c00 [size=4]
I/O ports at 9010 [size=8]
I/O ports at 9400 [size=4]
I/O ports at 9800 [size=16]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at e7040000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

01:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 1000
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at e8104000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Memory at e8100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7600 GS] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Unknown device 196e:033c
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at e4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at e5000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
I/O ports at a000 [size=128]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at e6000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

b@bb:~$

This is what I was looking for:

There used to some issues with sound and ethernet but I can't remember reading about issues with the IDE drives.
lspci does find the drives so I'm not clear what could cause them to disappear again when you try to approach them through Ubuntu. Are you sure that they are correctly configured? I see Master for both while only one can be master unless you use Cable Select. Have those drive always been there or did you add them only recently?

they have always been there.......... i use them for storage.. i will try to change them to master and slave and see what happens..

now it recognizes them... thank you very much.. i can now access those files