hewlett packard headaches

Hello im hoping someone can help me with this.im trying to work on someones computer.what happen was there 2 year old was jammin on the keyboard and it mess up big time.so i wipe it out and reinstall it but by the time it was done i wanted to turn the computer off,so i can take take out the cd player and put the case back on.so when i turn the computer back on there was nothing but the bios it wouldnt let me have access to the cd anymore too.well the exact qestion is that i noticed there was 2 partitions ,one for hewlett packard the other for windows.so i decided to delete the hewlett packard partition.and use one partition only.could that be the problem.with it.since ive done this before on another computer it didnt have any problems.any help would be appreciated..thanks..i took the hewlett partition out when i was reinstalling it.any clues

 

thanks plodr i was afraid that was the problem was.stupid of me doing that.weird that another hewlett comp ive worked on that didnt need it.i basically thought that hewlett partition was just used for backups.thanks again

 

well, after going over this again i looked at the hard drive i noticed the jumper was set on something else it wouldnt say so i changed it to master setting and created a new partition and formatted it.i was able to get access to the hard drive again also to the cd rom.and reinstalled xp back on.without the hewlett packard partition.wow them hewlett comp are something else..

 

It was probably set to cable select, and deleting that partition may have "fooled" the PC. Cable Select uses the location of the drive on the ribbon cable to determine Maste/Slave status.

Not supplying recovery discs has become commonplace because of the recovery partitions. In the long run, it does save the company money on disc media, and production, and they make a couple bucks when they are requested by a user.

 

Yes, but when you make a deal that all things needed will be pre-installed on the PC and you buy it thinking all is well, you get surprised that you have to go and buy spare parts for it on the very first day. And by spare parts I mean empty CDs. They don't say that when you buy.