flourescent ballast ???

Can a 4 lamp ballast go bad and still have 2 working lamps? Another question is when they say 2 lamp or say 3 lamp, does that mean bulbs or fixtures. The reason I ask is I have a number of lights that are 2 bulbs per fixture but 4 fixtures hooked together. One 4 lamp ballast per bank and 2 of the fixtures not working. Hope this makes sense.

The word lamp aways means a bulb. What you and I call a fixture, or sometimes even call "lamp" is in trade lingo called a luminaire.

There are many possible hookups for fluorescent lamps and luminaires, especially in commercial buildings. I would not try to comment on your problem without seeing the wiring diagram on the ballast and the wiring diagram for the luminaires.

If your ballast is made by Advance, they have such diagrams on their website.

ballast

Are you saying you have a 4 lamp/bulb ballast, but it has 8 lamps wired to it someway? Did it ever work?