Have: rescue partition - Want: BIOS to make it activate when F10 pressed.

Discussion in 'Software' started by Freak8, Oct 27, 2012.

  1. Freak8

    Freak8 Private E-2

    A little preface
    Computer was bought a few years back. There was a rescue partition (activated when F10 was pressed at the POST-screen). When booted, the rescue partition started a Ghost-esque program, and put a fresh-from-factory Windows XP image on the hard disk. However, at some point in time, I needed the space, and deleted the recovery partition. The BIOS start-up image obviously still say "F10 - Recovery", but nothing happened when pressed (as one would expect). The computer has just been laying around, being degraded to "when-primary-computer-fail-you're-okay"-status.

    Zap, zing, boom, skip to this morning
    A friend of mine needs a computer, nothing fancy, just something on which she can write documents, look at lolcats, use online banking and so on. Me being the nerdy type, and my friend being not very well acquainted with the inner workings of computers, and for the hell of it, I thought, why not make my own little rescue partition? So I installed an OEM Windows XP I had laying around, got SP3 working, found drivers (took some time, because it's quite an antique piece of fine electronic - but found it all), installed Office, well, put shortly I made it good to go.
    There's only one tiny little itty bitty annoyance: when booting, the POST-screen tells me that to enter setup, F1 should be pressed. If instead I want the boot menu selector, Esc is the key to be pushing. Well, to be fair, that's good and relevant information - and it works. However, the real pickle is the "F10 to enter system recovery". A solution must be found :)

    Theory (aka "can't be that difficult")
    The only disk is partitioned as follows:
    Partition1, FAT32, 5 GB, it's content is an image and a Ghost-esque executable. Normally this partition is inactive.
    Partition2, NTFS, 140 GB is the Windows system volume. Normally this is the active partition.
    Partition3, NTFS, 200 GB is used for the user's data, so that they are not lost when rescue is used.
    Machine is equipped with one physical hard drive, on which partition1 is FAT32 formatted with the /s switch to make it bootable. When booted, the autoexec.bat would ask if the user is sure, and this will delete the Windows-partition. Upon confirmation, it would fire up Ghost, and apply the image to partition2. After that, partition1 would be marked inactive, and partition2 active. After that, it would reboot, and the Windows on the image would load, and everything would be fine. Partition3 would not be touched.

    The tweaking (aka "The Fun Part")
    After way too long time tweaking my autoexec.bat, everything is tested. I made it so that a menu apperas, with an option to either go ahead and "factory reset" the Windows-partition (partition1), open Norton Commander (so that data can be moved from partition1 to partition3 prior to running the rescue), or cancel and reboot. It works too. Also put a few handy tools in, for instance drivers for the DVD-drive, the NIC, and last but not least: the mouse :). So, now I'm happy with my home-brewed and user-friendly rescue-thingy. Spirit's high, and my inner geek is thrilled with excitement.

    The Real Challenge (aka "No honey, it's the computer I'm yelling at, not you")
    Now, let's say Windows won't start, and my friend just want it to work again, it would require her to boot a partitioning tool, and make the rescue partition active, the windows-partition not, and rebooting. Not-so-user-friendly-after-all. Oh, we just "tell the BIOS, that the F10-key should fire up partition2". Not as simple as pressing a key though, which brings us to....

    What I tried (aka "I yelled to the BIOS to do it, but it wasn't listening. Or maybe it was. It certainly wasn't doing it.")
    I tried setting the label of the partition to what the rescue partition was originally, as well as setting the exact size (it was worth a shot).
    I trawled google and hp's forums with user-generated content. At least there's a lot of posts asking the same, but unfortunately not a solution. Most would just recommend installing a bootloader (GRUB or PLoP, for instance) on the MBR, and then letting the user press a key to start rescue. And yeah, that would work just fine. Now, if I didn't cared about the "Press F10 to start system recovery", there would be no problem. Unfortunately I do :banghead
    Just for the sake of doing it, I tried resetting both the BIOS and the extended bios data to their factory default, but to no avail.

    So, the million dollar question is
    What is the BIOS expecting the rescue partition to look like, in order to boot into it, when F10 is pressed during POST.
    Maybe the BIOS is looking for a specific file/boot record, in order to know which partition is the recovery one. Unfortunately, not a single one of my other computers have the recovery feature, so I can't investigate further.

    If you, too, have no idea
    Then at least do me a solid, at check if you have a rescue partition (Control Panel - Administration - Disk Management, or just fire up a command prompt, and do a diskpart followed by select disk 0 and list partition.).
    If you do, information about what's residing there, would be greatly appreciated.

    Ideas, thoughts, pointers, and everything in between are welcome! :hyper
     
  2. Perry smith

    Perry smith Private E-2

    I prefer the IBM T series, and will be getting a new(2 me) T61. It should have a R&R partition, and activate by the "thinkpad" button, but my future plans call for a SSD. Does your system have a the mPCI-e, and do you know if the BIOS will allow OS boot from said slot?
    I have exp w/ T23 w/ hidden recovery partition. My SSD is small (8gig)but the hidden part takes almost a gig. If I delete the hidden partition, can it be re integrated to C: w/o much trouble?
     

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