formating OS: bootable cd

[caffemusse]

Hello ladies and germs

After having needed to reinstall my HD via the R&Rs I made (good boy I have run into som probs.

Apparently the new vesion of R and R is not communicating properly with the initial one on my R&R cds. (yes i did the proper ticks in bios)

So I want to format the drive properly, and really remove the service part.

Can someone please give me an alternative to SDD 3.1.
Where I can dl a disk image that will alow me to boot into an environment where I can do some diskpartioning 'live'.

All I need is to boot (maybe via a linux live cd) and delete all partitions and formatting all the stuff.(the ole fashioned way)
Any linux live distros out there with disk partitioning and formating capabilities....?

A win98 disk would be ok, but I got no disk. Partion magic got no possiblity to create a bootable Cd.

Please help, I never thought it would be so hard finding something that does such a simple thing.

PS wishin ya all @ this fab forum merry xmas & HP NY

[caffemusse]

-not that I really have nothing to do, but Mr. fastlearner has just found what appears to be an answer to the question.

Gparted

http://gparted.sourceforge.net

Fantastic software I hear...will tryout and repost.

[carbon_unit]

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has some good tools on it including the Hitchi Drive fitness test and the Hitachi feature tool.
Everyone should have this cd.