I removed my EXT3 partition with CFDisk, and wrote the table. Then I restarted. Then I made a new partition (32GB) and wrote it as a Linux Partition.

I then restarted the computer again. When I came back, I used tune2fs -j /dev/hda7 to make the filesystem a ext3 type. Then I mounted it with no problem.

I took a quick look inside this new mountpoint, and all my old files were still there. I looked at df, and it said the partition was only 5 gb, the old size, even though cfdisk said it was 31.

So how do I fix this? I want a fresh ext3 parition.

Don't ! If there is no data, do not resize: erase and make all new.
Avoid resizeing if you can, it's safer !

That's what I want to do....But how do I erase my partition and start from scratch??

Just drop the partition, recreate it, then reformat it using mkisofs. That ought to do it. -- J.W.