Compaq part of the HDD

you know those store bought computers they have there own little part of the hdd. well i want to open it and take things i need from it like drivers and such. well they have it locked and cant get to it besides dos. is there away i can unlock it so i can get to the drivers? will i have to do it from dos? if so what commands do i need to know? or is there a peice of software that will unlock it for me?

 

You could try this: (i have a dutch edition of xp, so the menu items may differ a little) Go to the control panel and select performance and maintenance.
Then click on administrative tools and then on computer management. Select disk management from the menu on the left. You should get a screen with your drives, one of them visible, the other one invisible.
Right click on the invisible one and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Now click 'add'. Click Assign the following drive letter and select the letter you want. Apply by clicking ok.

 

i can already see the drive in windows. but when i try to access it a popup comes up telling me its for system restore by compaq and it has a lock in the top left of it and it wont let me get to the files. i can get on to the drive but all it shows me is 2 empty folders and a little settings file. i know theres files in it because there is 8gigs used up init but i just cant get to them

when i try what you say i get a error saying it cant change system volume or boot volume. right now the drive is listed as system volume. any way i can foce a change or something?

 

i will try and make this simple lol.

First thing. and only thing
i want to override a system volume there is no system files on it Just the factory software and drivers for the factory restore. i just did a freah install of XP Pro on the other partition. i looked every where and cant find no drivers for the compaq on the internet. so thats why i want to get in to that partition so bad. To get the drivers...

This post was for anyone thats just now reading this thread.

 

This should work, i've tested it on my sisters computer. It is the easiest workaround i could come up with. Take any archiving program like winrar or winace (tested with winace) and make it display hidden system files and folders. Then go to the restore drive, select everything and make an archive of it. When done you can access every file in that archive without any problem.

Edit: to display hidden system files and folders in windows do this: Open explorer and click Tools, select folder options and then the view (second) tab. Uncheck 'hide system files' (or something like that) and click yes in the message that appears. Then you also have to display the normal hidden files and folders, this should be further down the list. Check 'display hidden files and folders'. Now click OK

 

Thanks alot i did not need winrar or such. i could already get into the HDD but could not see the files i had it to show hidden files but i did not know there was another one for system files. so i am on my way to installing the drivers. hmm i been up for almost 24 hours. not good lol but oh well i will try to beat my 48hour mark Thanks again for the help.


just for people needing this later on. i just right clicked on the partition and clicked on open and that got me to where the files where but i could not see them but thanks to Erikske i was able to see the files needed because if not for him i would not of known there was another thing for system files in the folder settings.