Cannot access files on External HP HDD

>When I plug it in, I can see the HP launcher appear
I am not sure what you mean by this. No external software (such as from HP) should be launched when you plug in a device, particularly not software from third parties. A screenshot might help?

Looking at the output you have supplied, it looks like your disk is detected:
>Disk /dev/sdb: 499.4 GB, 499405291520 bytes

Whats more, it can see the filesystem -- its NTFS, the current windows partition format.
> /dev/sdb1 1 60716 487699456 7 HPFS/NTFS

So that all looks fine.

Can you provide the output from the following command

mount

?

Here is the mount info:

scaiazza@scaiazza-AO532h:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=600)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/home/scaiazza/.Private on /home/scaiazza type ecryptfs (ecryptfs_sig=574155ec3e37c670,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=6c76934820bf5828,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/scaiazza/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=scaiazza)

please check if your user have all permissions
please open the menu System→Administration→User and groups
and check the permissions of your user please give all permissions using the
"Advanced settings" go to "Users Priviledges" and set all permissions

Then please try to create a mount point and then mount your external hard-disk:

You can mount partitions from the places menu which may help

Can you give the output of:

sudo parted -l; mount

Thanks

Here you go. I looked at the permissions and the mountings. All permissions are checked and I do not see a mounting option on the places menu says it is mounted. Part of the problem, I think, is that this external drive creates two drives, one acts like a CD Rom and the other acts like a normal HDD.

Here is the data:
scaiazza@scaiazza-AO532h:~$ sudo parted -l; mount
[sudo] password for scaiazza:
Model: ATA WDC WD1600BEVT-2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 157GB 157GB primary ext4 boot
 2 157GB 160GB 3143MB extended
 5 157GB 160GB 3143MB logical linux-swap(v1)

Model: HP External HDD (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 499GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 499GB 499GB primary ntfs

Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Warning: The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 512 bytes, but
Linux says it is 2048 bytes.
Ignore/Cancel? ignore
Model: HP Virtual CD 4507 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 175MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/2048B
Partition Table: mac

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
 1 512B 1535B 1024B CDEveryWhere 2.0 Part. Map
 2 1536B 904kB 903kB hfs CDEveryWhere Hybrid Volume

/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=600)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/home/scaiazza/.Private on /home/scaiazza type ecryptfs (ecryptfs_sig=574155ec3e37c670,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=6c76934820bf5828,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/scaiazza/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=scaiazza)
/dev/sr0 on /media/HPLAUNCHER type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500)

Have a look at:
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticallyMountPartitions (most interesting)
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount
You could run:
   sudo mkdir /mnt/HP_DISK
   sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o defaults,user,exec,uid=1000,gid=100,umask=000 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/HP_DISK
to check behaviour.

With latest version of Ubuntu, this should be managed by udev daemon instead of fstab.

This last one did it. Thank you all for your help.