knoppix corrupted my hdd

[quote="xaviers2002"]

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: also, the 'auto' setting in my bios has always worked correctly before, with LBA enabled. the only other setting i have in the bios is 'auto, disabled, cdrom', so i have no choice.

Did You clik "ENTER" when You scroll between "AUTO CDROM DISABLE"? If not You have to do this after You see "AUTO".

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yes i did... auto is the only setting where it detects the hdd at all

try fdisk /mbr

go to the manufacturers website (seagate) they generally have boot diskettes to diagnose and repair their model drives (in case drive geometry is messed up)

The same problem happen to me few moth ago when i used grub with xp, but i manage to repair the problem using testdisk utility. This utility is builtin with knoppix. You can try recover your partition using knoppix cd and run testdisk.
Or you can get utility and use a floppy.
Get the utility form here:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/