Editing Partitions Using Live Disc...
 

Is there a tool that can be run through the LiveCD that can repartition some space I lost during a botched install? If so where is it found and what are the risks involved in repartitioning from the GUI LiveCD?

Most linux distro's have a gui and textbased partition editors. Exapmple Damn Small Linux has Cfdisk, ubunut has gparted (I think it's gparted). Anyhow a question comes into play. Do you want to try to save the data on the botched install or just play over it. Or, keep it and install a new system on a diffrent partition?

If it's one of the first two get your self a usb flash disk and save all you sensitive data on it. Then simply run a reinstall and wipe the hard drive that way. As for resizing a partition, I think Gparted will allow you to do this so give Ubuntu a roll (or Xubuntu if you don't have that advanced of a computer).

As for the risks there are little. Unless you get a horribly corrupted live disk you won't have to risk anything until you actually write the partition information. Live disk load entirely into Ram so after a reboot there is no record of them running on your system (Unless you work for the NSA lol).

Happy linuxing.

Alright well all that is on that lost partition is a botched Ubuntu install so I just want to reclaim it as empty space. I ran disc check and the disc is without errors. I am going to try to get Ubuntu installed and then use gparted to re-arrange my partitions. For now I am just running a smallish 10 GB Ubuntu install because most of my media files are on my Win XP partition. Wish me luck with Ubuntu install this time, my hardware was detected without incident by the LiveCD and yet that is where it locked up on me last time.

I could do alternative install disc but my internet connection is quite slow out here as it is radio-based broadband. I have a flight to catch tomorrow so I'd really like to get this squared away within the next few hours.

Good Luck
 

Hopefully that install works. But, if it doesn't you might have a bad disk. But that's just me being pessimistic...