cannot install DSL to free space on partitioned HDD.
 

I cannot install DSL on my 160gb hard drive. DSL will not recognize any drive format I enter in - e.g., hda,hdb,sda,sdb,. It will not recognize anything. Yes, the drive is partitioned and has 45gb free, at least that's what is stated on Vista 'disk management'. The hard drive is set as Master and is SATAII. Should I change my BIOS settings to boot as 'Legacy', do you think that would make any difference?
Also,
I attempted to format a small amount (20gb) into FAT32, just to see if DSL would acknowledge the drive type, and nothing.
Another idea, I have already fixed mbr with SGD, should I do it again?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

seeing the partition table on your drive would help.

can you post the output of fdisk -l

Installing to unpartitioned space would be the easiest approach.. but lets see what we are working with first.

farslayer,
That's the first step I took, to see what it sees. And i get something about 'command could not be recognized', something like that. anyway, it didn't respond, weird huh? you'd think I would be able to at least get a list of partitions.
I am not in front of that computer right now, but will be after 7pm. Guaranteed I will be trying to crack this the second I get home.
Butif anyone has any further suggestions, I am listening.