Did I just break my Mac while using Boot Camp?

[thatoneotherguy]

I recently got a copy of Windows XP and attempted to put it on my Mac using Boot Camp Assistant. I partitioned my computer so 20 GB was reserved for windows and the rest was running Leopard.

Boot Camp Assisstant was running fine, it started Windows installation and came to a screen that asked me in which partition I wanted to install it. I tried the one labeled Boot Camp in parentheses but an error occured, so I tried again and noticed that it said another operating system was already running on that partition. This surprised me but I figured it had to be Leopard, so this time I told it to run on the other partition. Again there was an error, it said it couldn't recognize the format, but I could continue by deleting the partition and installing windows xp on the unpartitioned space. So that is what I did.

Yet again, an error occured. It said "disk error: press any key to continue" except the keys were no longer working. I had to shut down my macbook and reboot, but it took me to the same screen. By this point I was getting worried so I took out the Windows CD and rebooted again, but just got a blank screen.

Finally I inserted my Mac OS X disk and rebooted for a final time. When it came to the screen that asked me where I wanted to install Mac OS X the only option was Boot Camp which has 20 GB of available space.

Did I permenantly destroy 180 something GB of space by deleting that partition? Does anyone know what I can do to get it back?

[#1 Rhapsody]

You should repartition the drive. Windows probably didn't add a partition, so you have 180GB of free, unpartitioned space. I hope you had a Time Machine backup .