I am an international student about to go through PhD candidacy confirmation. I have discovered that the methods I wanted to employ for my project won't work, and I need to learn a new discipline which I have always hated in order to give the data I have collected any meaning. I should have spotted this sooner. I don't want these skills, I'm not very happy here and I miss the research I was doing for my masters project. Should I quit and go home, and would anyone take me on for another start at a PhD?

what is the view of your supervisor? Please give us more details to assess your situation.

My supervisor is very much of the "do what you must for the good of the project" school of thought. I have data from a technique that I am happy with (not the one I really wanted to use), but it is useless without the new discipline. He doesn't see this as a problem - he just wants the project to get an answer, but I'm worried about where a PhD involving this field could, or could not, take me.