corrupt partition

i just got partition magic 8 in an attempt to get redhat on my computer so i edited my 40 GB hdd and when i started again it began editing the partitions... anyway... the attempt failed miserably so now my partition is corrupt

i put it in as a secondary drive in my other comp and it recognised the drive but could not open it, thereby not allowing me to backup the files that are on the missing partition... what i need to know is how can i veiw these files and copy them to my other computer or if possable... restore the partition so i do not have to reformat at all...

PLEASE!!! do everything in your power to help because i have over $3000 worth of "legally" obtained software on this hard drive!!!

Slap on wrist time for you then, to have all that software not backed up elsewhere. You can get a drive failure at any time.

OK, lecture over, this is good freeware file recovery software:

PC Inspector

If that doesn't do it I've had excellent results in the past from Easy Recovery Pro, but it isn't cheap. You should be able to download a trial version before you spend any money though:

http://www.ontrack.com/Homepage.aspx...ename=Software