Thanks for all the help and comments. I was finally able to work with
the drive using Acronis Disk Manager. Once I was able to create a
Backup partition I was then able to create a drive image backup
without error. Just for a test, I unplugged the hard drive and
attempted to boot off my flash drive, the Compaq screen didn't
appear, but what did appear was a screen reporting available boot
devices, the flash drive, and the CD drive and a dialog that asked me
which one I wanted to save to setup, and make the default boot
device..... so it appears that it can live without that hidden partition.
However, Compaq has me sufficiently alarmed that I am going to backup
the primary and leave things as they are.
At 05:09 AM 6/2/2007, you wrote:
Yes, "Duh" if you don't have the driver set, an OS
disk & valid key,
don't do the work. That said, kill that little Compaq
partition on some
models (maybe only circa < 2000, haven't worked on a
new one) and loose
access to the BIOS setup. May not keep you from
booting via HDD (since
BIOS reset jumper fixes that much) but it will keep
you from getting in
and changing anything in the BIOS.
