Hard drive problem

Not sure if this is the appropriate group for this, but if it isn't,
maybe someone can steer me in the right direction. (also posted in
alt.comp.hardware)
On this machine my second hard drive is Western Digital 120 gig. I had
it all on one partition. It had 55 gigs of data (CD images actually) on it
and I wanted to set aside 30 gigs to install Linux on it. At the time I
though Linux had to reside in the first partition so, using Partition
Magic, I created the 30 gig partition in front of what was already there.
Of course it had to move all the data, but it worked fine. I can run Linux
using a floppy boot disk, and Windows sees the second partition as drive H
and I have access to all that data.
Now I have installed Linux on another dedicated machine and want to
remove the Linux partition from this 120 gig drive. But Partition Magic is
now showing it as a "bad drive". See http://www.mewnlite.com/pmscreen.jpg .
FDISK just locks up on it, so I can't even view the partition information
with that.
The Linux Red Hat Hardware browser displays both my drives and the
partition information correctly. See http://www.mewnlite.com/scrnshot.jpg .
My original plan was to use Partiton Magic to delete the first partition
and the just add the free space back to the remaining partition, but all PM
can see is a bad drive.
My Western Digital Data Lifeguard floppy disk utility can see the second
partition and calls the first one "unidentifiable".
Unless someone can help me figure out how to get rid of that partiton my
only choice will be to copy the entire 55 gigs of data off onto another
drive, then wipe the original drive out, reformat it, and copy it all back.
I don't have that big of a drive laying around at the moment, but I have a
friend with an 80 gig external drive I could borrow if need be. But that
sounds long and painful... :-)
Partiton Magic created that partition in the first place. I can't
understand why it can't "see" it now!
Any ideas? Or where should I post this?
Thanks


--
I child-proofed my house but they are still getting in.

"Lil' Abner" <> wrote in
news:Xns94C672ED3701Dbutter@216.196.105.138:

> Not sure if this is the appropriate group for this, but if it
> isn't,
> maybe someone can steer me in the right direction. (also posted in
> alt.comp.hardware)
> On this machine my second hard drive is Western Digital 120 gig. I
> had
> it all on one partition. It had 55 gigs of data (CD images actually)
> on it and I wanted to set aside 30 gigs to install Linux on it. At the
> time I though Linux had to reside in the first partition so, using
> Partition Magic, I created the 30 gig partition in front of what was
> already there. Of course it had to move all the data, but it worked
> fine. I can run Linux using a floppy boot disk, and Windows sees the
> second partition as drive H and I have access to all that data.
> Now I have installed Linux on another dedicated machine and want to
> remove the Linux partition from this 120 gig drive. But Partition
> Magic is now showing it as a "bad drive". See
> http://www.mewnlite.com/pmscreen.jpg . FDISK just locks up on it, so I
> can't even view the partition information with that.
> The Linux Red Hat Hardware browser displays both my drives and the
> partition information correctly. See
> http://www.mewnlite.com/scrnshot.jpg .
> My original plan was to use Partiton Magic to delete the first
> partition
> and the just add the free space back to the remaining partition, but
> all PM can see is a bad drive.
> My Western Digital Data Lifeguard floppy disk utility can see the
> second
> partition and calls the first one "unidentifiable".
> Unless someone can help me figure out how to get rid of that
> partiton my
> only choice will be to copy the entire 55 gigs of data off onto
> another drive, then wipe the original drive out, reformat it, and copy
> it all back. I don't have that big of a drive laying around at the
> moment, but I have a friend with an 80 gig external drive I could
> borrow if need be. But that sounds long and painful... :-)

Case closed. That's what I did and it wasn't all that bad.

--
I child-proofed my house but they are still getting in.