What is a motherboard tatoo?

Hi:
I've been around computers for a long time, but I've never heard of this one:
I bought a Compaq Presario with Windows XP Media Center 2005 a little over a year ago. AMD 3500+ Processor 2 GB RAM & 250GB HDD.

Worked fine until earlier this year when it suddenly started freezing up on me and then would suddenly reboot for no reason. I tried to find an answer for the problem on HP's website, but, alas to no avail. Finally I took it back to Best Buy where I had bought it, and they kept it for about a week and then called me (what they call their Geek Squad), and told me they couldn't find anything wrong with it, so I picked it up and started using it again.

Earlier this week, I was working along and suddenly the computer just froze and then shut down. When I turned it back on, it came up with a different welcome screen. The original was a black screen that just said COMPAQ on it and then it would boot up to Windows. This time, the screen was blue and the logo said HP INVENT and when it booted up to windows, it looked the same, but everytime I tried to use one of my internet accounts that required a login (especially using FTTPS) I would get a message that the certificate was not valid. I finally contacted HP again, and after several communications, they told me to run a system recovery. I bought a Seagate FreeAgent Go 250GB portable Hard Drive and synced my entire C: drive to it, and then attempted a system restore. Well, it didn't work and the computer won't boot at all. HP informed me that it would have to have a "bench work order" to repair the "Motherboard Tatoo ". I've never heard of that. Can anyone explain to me what that is?

In the meantime, HP is supposed to have FedEx pick up my 'puter and take it to an authorized repair center and have it repaired and bring it back. I sure hope I can get all my stuff back on it when I get it back.

This is so frustrating.

Thanks for listening,
Mickey918

 

Basically, a tatoo is code programmed in the BIOS to prevent diagnostic and recovery CDs made specifically for that computer from being used on another system. If you have it worked on and changes are made to the system, then the diagnostic and recovery cds for that computer will not work because the tatoo isn't there or is different. You'll find tatoos on company built machines (i.e. HP). I am sure if you google it you'll find more information.

Found this at searchdatacenter.techtarget.com