[ubuntu-uk] Disk Rescue!

[daveg at boavon.plus.com]

I have spent best part of today trying to rescue my 20GB hard disk from my
beloved Toshiba Portege running Ubuntu 10.4 and XP on a partition that is
hardly used.

Last updates must have screwed my MBR (I'm guessing but may be wrong about
the updates - but do reckon the MBR is no longer any good)

I've messed about with various partitioners, run up a few live distros
including runnig cfdisk -z from a live cd but all to no avail.  I dont
care about any data - I'll be happy with a fresh install.  I'm beginning
to think my IDE conroller has gone.  Thought those were on disks though -
not boards - but this is an old machine - circa 2002/3. Did try attaching
it into an even older Toshiba - but same problems.  Don't have any spare
disks to try on the Portege.

Just downloading a live version of Gparted but I dont think this will help
somhow - but fingers crossed.

Anyone got any tips?