HP and Compaq?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smith
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Smith

So HP and Compaq are one now...was wondering something. I know that Compaq
keeps the system stuff on a non-dos partition, my question is do HP machines
do this too?

Thanks,

Smith
 
I have a desktop HP with WinXP about 6 months old. It has a C drive in NTFS
with backup on a small D FAT32 drive. Also worked with an HP laptop about 2
months ago and it had a similar config. So looks like HP don't do that!
 
By system stuff, do you mean the BIOS Setup program? They have not done
that since the 486/Pentium 1 days. You just F10 to go into setup (BIOS)
like other BIOS.
 
Well, what do you consider a long time? *grin*

I have sitting in front of mye a Compaq Armada 1598DMT laptop which is
fairly modern by my standards. It's a 233Mhz system with 96MB of RAM, 6 gig
hard drive, 13.3" TFT display, etc etc... Manufactured in 1998. Nice
machine, actually.

But get this. In order to make any changes in the "BIOS" you must have
either a special type of non-DOS partition on the hard drive that contains
the setup utility, or boot from a floppy with those utilities. When I
bought the machine (used/eBay) I thought surely it was new enough that the
setup routine would be in a ROM like most every modern system, and so I
started pecking away... F1, F2, F10, CTRL+ALT+ESC, DEL, etc etc etc...
Every friggin' key on the keyboard. After searching Google did I find that
F10 gets you "into" the BIOS, but only if you have the setup files on the
hard drive in that special partition.

Then, I have a newer yet Presario 1692 (433Mhz) that has a Phoenix BIOS and
DOES have the ability to modify the contents/options through a routine
burned into a ROM.

Go figure...
 
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