I'm sure its something to do with the mount command, that i toyed with a while back. If i use fdisk -l it lists my external harddrive like this

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe543e543

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda3 1021 8515 60203587+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1221 3652 19535008+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 3653 7299 29294496 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 7300 7664 2931831 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 7665 7786 979933+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 7787 8163 3028221 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 8164 8515 2827408+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 1021 1220 1606437 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x921d8bff

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 54709 439450011 83 Linux


But yet under computer or PLaces it doesn't show up. External hard drive is /sdb.


Also, i would like to resize my /home folder which is almost full, but don't get an option for this with gparted??

You can manually mount the partition /dev/sdb1 to a directory such as /mnt/external

that does work and gives me command line access to the external drive, but do you know how i can regain graphical access? as it still does not appear under /Places/Computer/

Mount it to /Places/Computer:

mount /dev/sd* /Places/Computer

open dolphin (or your gui viewer..) and navigate to that dir.

You can also use the automounter, autofs.