Hidden Partition on OEM machine?

Mainly curious but how can one determine if there is a hidden diagnostic partition with recovery files on an OEM machine? My computor has the C: drive listed as "Disk1Part02 [C:]" in Windows Explorer Nothing shows up as Partition "01" anywhere, not in F-disk or anywhere else.

If there is one on the machine, can it be accessed?

Drives listed in my computer are:
31/2 Floppy [A:]
Disk1Part02 [C:]
D: CD-RW drive
E: CD-ROM drive

 

John, Power Quest has a free Partition Table Editor that will not only show you if there is such a partition hidden on there, it will allow you to retag it so as to make it visible.

Get it here.

Normally the hidden partitions will be either type 12 or type 44. What you redesignate it as depends on what type of system you are running. When you find out if it's there, post back for further guidance if needed.

Cheers.

 

Thanks Zephyr. I d/l'd the Part. Table Editor and ran it, only one partition. I guess whoever set up this machine just named the partion "02 ".

BTW also had to find and d/l the PowerQuest Engine file pqvxd.vxd and put it in Windows\System dir. before the utility would run.

I bought this machine 2nd hand from a chap where I used to work. He was totally computer illiterate so didn't have a clue as to what was what, etc. Been a good machine for me tho', not being a power user. Only thing I would wish for right now is DSL or Cable, but being out in the boonies, not likely.

Thanks again, John.

 

That's odd, I never had to get any driver to use that executable file..hmm..I didn't mean to send you off on a hard one. How did you find out you needed the file, perhaps an error message I suppose.

Oh well, you got the info you needed so that's all that counts.

 

When I ran the Part. Table Editor a pop up box came up saying Error E10002, couldn't find PowerQuest Engine pqvxd.vxd. Clicked Ok and the utility shut down.

Did a search on Google for the vxd file, found it, d/l'd to Windows\System ran the utility and all was well. I think the problem was that I don't have any other PQ applications so the PQ engine has never been installed. Have it now tho'.

 

Thanks for the feedback John. I run XP Home and it doesn't have the pqvxd.vxd file yet the partition Table Editor runs just fine without it. It would seem it's OS specific. I'll keep that in mind when recommending it in the future.

Best regards.