Lost HD drives

[frankb]

On my Win98SE machine
Wanted to do a copy of a CD and went to Nero 6.

got an error message something to the effect that it was in use and had to have permission.
Could not get off the merry-g0-round. So did a Re-boot.

Now no 40 GB HD
black screen at boot up says insert boot disk.
Win98 boot disk and get to a: prompt but no C,D,E,F. Hard Drives.

Used powermax (Maxtor) to check drive and passed tests.
Used maxblast 3.6 and get to see the HD,

Fdisk gives the HD.

I did Fdisk /mbr
and now get "invalid partition table"

The BIG question
How do you get to re-install FAT on a drive that does get booted up?

[ski]

Sss if this helps:
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/booterrGBER31-c.html

[frankb]

Going the re-format and re-install route.

Just can't figure why that happened.
But, can't take chances.

Data files are on back-up set so no loss.
The lenghtly part is re-setting all, and re-entering all the programs.

Ski Thanks, but after reading that, I am sure that's the best route.
something went corrupt.