Messed Up Hard Drive

You should've used PortalApps before this happend

If you say Windows don't see it, where are you looking?

Right Click My Computer (in M$ Winblows)
Select Manage
Then scroll down to Disk Management (Sub node to Storage)
See if you can see it there, if you can't see it there, make sure your CMOS detects it, else your screwed.
If you CAN see it in the Disk Management, you can partition it there

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Mayhem, Chaos and Anarchy !!!
My job here is complete !

I just saw that your data was backed up already of which is good. I was going to suggest giving UBCD4Win.com a look see and build it for your needs. It allows you run XP from a CD purely for recovery purposes. If the partition is screwed up, the drive is still usable but it just needs to be re-partitioned and re-formatted. Then you can reinstall XP onto it and be just fine.

As the other person suggested though, check in the BIOS to ensure that your HD is seen. If it is, you will just need to find one fo the many easily accesible and findable boot disks out there for ME or 98 and fdisk the drive.

I does recognise Linux so install Linux and go with it...;-)
If you don't like Linux (although I suggest you try it), use Knoppix or something else to reformat your drive with fat32. Afterwards Windose should recognise it.