problem cleaning up old drive

[nepal google]

I have a 40gb hda drive that I want to completely erase and 
try to re-use following the problems I've had and reported 
to the list.

The snag is that the swap drive is on that drive, not on the 
hdb that I am using presently.

Seems like a catch 22. I know I messed things up before 
trying to overcome this. Can anyone help. I need to be able 
to create a new swap while I am using a system that uses 
the swap, is that possible? or is there a way to do this 
without losing my Kubuntu 7.10 installation?

eek!

nepal.