\_ >From this snippet, it looks like the bootup process sees both hard 
\_ drives and the CD-ROM drive, but cannot determine the partitions on 
\_ the 8Gb (hdb) drive.  Is there any program or tool that can figure
\_ that out, so the partition(s) on that drive could be mounted and
\_ accessed, or does this mean the drive's previous partition(s) is/are
\_ toast and should be repartitioned and reformatted?

Try fdisking /dev/hdb and see what it has to say.

You may need to read the Large-Disk-HOWTO (sp?) depening on the age of
the MOBO and related factors.  See if there is a BIOS update for the
MOBO.

\_ I suggested that he try to assume one partition (hdb1) on there,
\_ and try to mount just that but when he tried this:
\_ 
\_ mount /dev/hdb1 -t ext2 /dat

Try 

mount /dev/hdb1 -t auto /dat

The auto trick is scary, but I've seen it work, and it beats scrolling
through the partitions by hand.

\_ mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb1,
\_ or too many mounted file systems
\_ (aren't you trying to mount an extended partition inside?)
This (to me) indicates that hdb1 is an extended partion, and has other
partitions living inside it.

Did said friend happen to save a copy of, oh, say /etc/* that would be
helpful?  :-)

YMMV.

David