ubuntu linux

You are specifying a DRIVE to your mount command... what is called for is a PARTITION...

My guess is that /dev/sdb1 contains the ROOT of your Fedora install, while /dev/sdb2 contains your "user data" (usually /home).

So, you want your command to look like this:
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb2 /home/jeff/olddrive

I hope this helps!

Dan
IT4SOHO

Run "fdisk -l /dev/sda" and paste output here.

I meant "fdisk -l /dev/sdb" :) not /dev/sda of course.

i tried
fdisk -l /dev/sdb   ( i'm pretty sure sda is my ubuntu drive, sdb is my fedora drive ) and got this
Device            Boot     Start          End                Blocks           ID        System
/dev/sdb1        *           1                13                 104391         83        linux
/dev/sdb2                     14            9725           78011640         8e       linux lvm

what the heck is file type 8e? when i run
sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /home/jeff/olddrive
i get
mount:  unknown filesystem type  'lvm2_member'

WOW! that link is exactly what I want to do. As always, I run into a glitch. I went step by step and the first two commands run great, but when I try
sudo vgscan
i get "command not found"
I tried
sudo updatedb, and locate  vgscan, but apparently, vgscan doesn't exist on my ubuntu box? is there something else i should install?

Disk type 8e is a Linux "Logical Volume" -- which means that the partition is purportedly part of a RAID array.

If that RAID array is/was a RAID-1 array, you can simply FORCE the mount command to treat it as an ext3 filesystem. If it is/was part of virtually any other type of RAID array, you'll have to find the other parts (RAID types 0, 3, 5, & 6 -- as well as 10 -- all "stripe" data across multiple disks... if you only have 1 disk, you CANNOT rebuild the data. (If you are MISSING just 1 disk, you CAN rebuild the data -- that's what RAID is for!)

Finally, the command you're missing (vgscan)  is part of the LVM2 package -- it is a "Volume Group Scan" command... but there won't be any additional members of the volume group (you've only brought over the 1 drive, right?), so you don't need that command after all.

I hope this helps...

Dan
IT4SOHO

Are you sure, that you have successfully installed lvm2 package? vgscan comes with it.
Try: dpkg -l | grep lvm
Or just run again: sudo apt-get install lvm2

Just tried that on my testbox with ubuntu - I installed only lvm2 package, and I have vgscan available.

"If that RAID array is/was a RAID-1 array, you can simply FORCE the mount command to treat it as an ext3 filesystem."

yes, it was from a mirrored raid, how do i force mount to treat it as ext3?

all the fdisk stuff completed successfully, then i  printed the partition table and i get
device      boot     start       end         blocks      id     system
/dev/sdb1  *          1            13          104391    83     linux
/dev/sdb2             14        9725       78011640  83    linux

so i thought everything was all good, so i
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb2 /home/jeff/olddrive    and i get
mount: unknown filesystem type  'lvm2_member'   !!
so i try
sudo apt-get install lvm2
again and get
couldn't find package lvm2
then i feel like a complete idiot because i realize i don't have the network cable plugged in, however i try
sudo apt-get install lvm2
again after plugging in the network cable and ifconfiging to make sure i have an address, i even pinged www.yahoo.com to be sure i'm getting out, and pinged successfully but still get
couldn't find package lvm2
could it be that my apt-get is not pointing to the correct location?

never mind, i rebooted and then was able to apt-get lvm2, then i could mount the volume and get the files i needed. Thanks for the help