Hidden sdb
 

Hi,

Gpart reveals my ancillary hard drive is connected, but it doesn't otherwise showup in Hardy or Win 2k. How can I fix this?

try changing your partition table if you have no data to lose.

use a live cd to recover data if you do.

2) check your cables and be aware of static electricity and check your bios sees the device

Thanks for your help.

I think the cables are ok. Sdb shows up as "Unallocated" but I'm hopping to salvage the data. Is that poss? Please would you go a little further in explaining how I change my table.

do not change partitions if you need to recover data.

get yourself a good live cd...knoppix or rescuecd are good choices....depending on which one you get...you may be able to click on the partition to read it...with knoppix....otherwise mount it with any live cd

eg

where filesystem format is the format like fat vfat ext2 etc

hda1 or hdb2 etc

hda is master jumper ide on first controller
hdb is slave same contoller

etc

2) once partition is mounted (made readable) use copy commands to copy data to a reliable media....with knoppix you can use the konqueror file manager...with other live cds you may need to use manual commands

see midnight commander mc if you choose sysresccd
http://www.sysresccd.org/Screenshots

oh...the live cd may not see your hidden drive as sdb.....so check the live cd /var/log/dmesg for confirmation of sizes detected or run a command like
fdisk /dev/hdx

fdisk /dev/sdx

with changing x values until you get the right structure

Thanka again. Am following your advice