Can I reformat an external drive used as a recovery drive?

[Crotonmark]

Is there anyway to convert an external drive back to other uses once Lion uses it to create an external recovery drive? In Windows or Mac OS?
I made the mistake of converting my book to a recovery drive thinking it would use part of the drive - not all of it
Now Mac or Windows doesn't see it at all

TIA

Mark

 

[Mal]

You can. Just format it in Disk Utility. You'll want to change the partition scheme (so click on the Partition tab instead of the Erase tab, and choose the number of partitions you want, even if it's just 1, from the dropdown menu).

jW

 

[Crotonmark]

thanks JW
Is there anyway I can do this magic:

remove the Lion partition and have the disk become what it was (my windows bootcamp back up disk) without losing the info that was on there?

As it stands now - neither the Mac side or the Windows side "sees" the external drive - it is invisible and I don't know what to do
I would love to not lose data

TIA

Marl