right now i have a linux partition, a linux swap partition, and an ntfs partition on my drive. if i used fdisk or cfdisk to rewrite the partition table and change either of the linux partitions without touching the ntfs partition, is it possible that it could damage data ntfs partition? would all of the cylinders and everything stay the same for that partition or would it take what i entered and write a new table with new cylinders and such?

i have done that and nothing happend with the ntfs partition.

If used correctly, partitioning programs will not affect partitions other than the ones intended. But--when doing ANY maintenance like this, be sure your data is backed up. These programs have no warnings or "reverts" if you make a typo.

I go one step further.

No damage if the ntfs partition is a primary because its hard disk address is recorded in the partition table when all the other partitions are nuked.

Inconvenience if the ntfs partition is a logical because all logical partitions must be continuous. Therefore the 1st one is always at the 5th position like sda5 or hda5. Thus if the first two partitions sda5 and sda6 are deleted the original sda7 will be known as sda5 with dead space in front of it. If the ntfs partition is only used in Windoze then it doesn't matter at all.