If you can see your partitions you should be able to delete them now, if you do not need the data anymore.

-Delete all partitions.
-create new partitions
-install your OS
.
.
.
.
-say thank you Linux community for helping me reinstalling my Windows :)
-return here and ask us how to reinstall your Linux and you´ll be out of trouble ;)


a little hint:
much more easier to use than fdisk is to get a life-cd like Knoppix or something like that ( i guess any bootable Linux-CD can do it ), boot it, switch to a console and type cfdisk
Easy little tool for partitioning ;)

my table
device start end id system
hda1 1 3747 7 hpfs/ntf
hda2 3748 19821 f win95 ext'd
hda3 19822 24782 83 linux
hda5 3748 9838 7 ntfs
hda6 9839 15945 7 ntfs
hda7 15946 15958 83 linux
hda8 15959 16088 82 linux swap
hda9 16089 19821 7 ntfs

so i went to linux rescue
couldnt find linux partitions
then
fdisk -l
fdisk /dev/hda
a ( to toggle boot)
7 ( my partition which contained linux)

tried booting, didnt work, tried booting other linux partitions, didnt work.
tried using dos to access paritions, couldnt.
tried booting using winxp cd, found unusal size,
lost.
should i delete the linux partitions, then create a new partition??? and try to install windows on it???

okey so i went and used smart fdisk and deleted my linux partitions and made my hda1 active and booted winxp cd and VA-LA! found all my partitions.

thanks to all for the help.
I'll install RH back on later and brush up on my linux skills.
(btw i do have knoppix)

For future reference once you recovered your partitions booting into rescue from the rh cd to a command line and doing something like:

grub
root (hd0,6)
setup (hd0)
quit

would probably have restored your grub boot menu and got your linux back. But perhaps it's better this way as it's hard to tell if linux had been corrupted or not. You might have wound up with a non booting computer again. Regards.

wait....!

stop the panic!

check out system commander , it'll cost you about $50 bucks or so but you'll finally have a tool that kicks butt in the parititioning department

http://www.v-com.com

go order it or download it, get it installed on another computer, create a start up & rescue disketter and use those diskettes on your messed up machine....

if worse comes to worse, you might have to put that messed up drive as secondary drive in your system but i can't see that being required. just get system commander going and let it do it's magic.

and then let us know how it turns out

- perry

your NTFS partitiions are, or should be were windows is. try setting each one to active and see if widows boots

If you dont want linux anymore just format one of those partitions and install windows to those then from there you should be able to access your other drives from windows xp.