Boot problem

[joe]

.
Eric wrote: 
> No problem, Michael. Joe apparently switched them from what they 
> were yesterday (or wasn't awake yet ;) ).

I have not switched the drives or the drive letters 
and I have not changed any hardware or hardware configurations 
(or anything else except the attempted Qwest DSL install) 
since everything was working perfectly as of 7am Monday morning. 

Michael first wrote: 
> > I would say  hda is bad. The table on this drive has disapeared 
> > and you cant boot from it. 

Michael next wrote: 
> > correction: hdb appears bad 

hdb is the older 8-gig partition that was booting and running as of yesterday. 
hda is the new 80-gig partition that was booting and running perfectly for the
past six months until the Qwest DSL setup attempt. 

Michael first wrote (continuing): 
> > Try removing hdb and try to boot. hda5 is the active partition, 
> > or at least it was. It should boot from there even though 
> > it is not labeled. 
> > 
> > Does the BIOS recognize the drive size correctly upon boot? 

Yes, it did recognize both drive sizes correctly in the bios 
before Eric disabled drive hdb in the bios (I think that is 
what was done.) 

> > I would get another drive (brand new) and use the cd it comes 
> > with and mirror copy the entire disk, partition by partition. 
> > Relabel the partitions, and you should be good to go. 

I'm currently making copies of crucial data from both hda and hdb 
to a flash-stick and then copying the files to my laptop and 
burning CDs as backup data.  I also wrote a note earlier this 
morning to inquire if it was possible and what the procedure 
would be for using a Knoppix live CD with K3B to burn DVDs 
of the entire hda6 partition. 

> > Do not try to write to the old disk anymore, this will incur data loss.

Which hda or hdb? 

Again, thanks to everyone for the helpful ideas and suggestions 
(although some do seem to be a bit contradictory at times ;))