F10 Partition

[cwin]

As my comp is a manufacturer system, not home built, they put in a partition labled RECOVERY, its hidden, and unactive; according to paragon partiton manager.
I couldnt access it. Some might remember a previous thread about that. I coant find it.
I sent mesh a support request yesterday, and within an hour i got the reply, which i have just read.
Bit bad English tho

Mesh Reply
This is a recovery solution for restoring the PC back to factiry settings To access it you press the F10 key when booting the PC. Please not using some partition managers can break the recovery partition (if the boot sector is re written the F10 solution will not work.

All is fine and well in theroy, but according to that, if i repartition my drive, i cant access the recovery partition.
I wanted to reformat and install linux on a new partition, but how do i create a new partition without killing F10?
Is there any tools that you can backup certain sections of the boot sector so you CAN create a new partition, and still use that one?
I dont know whats on that partition, or where it boots from... but i can send more requests

In short, i wanna put a linux partition on without destroying the boot sector.

Also.... how does the boot sector work? Can i get a program to edit the boot sector and stuff. Like put a boot menu on it, or make it so if i leave it, it will start windows, but pressing F11 will load linux and stuff.
Another thing. The chance i get to press any boot keys is about 0.1 seconds and i always miss it, can i change the delay?

[mrrobotto]

You can do some reading up at these three links if you like but you might already know all this if not it might help you out.

http://www.ata-atapi.com/hiwmbr.htm#T4

http://www.nondot.org/sabre/os/files...ootSector.html

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/struct_MBR.htm
Good Luck!

[rraehal]

You could try to boot to the recovery partition with GHOST in the floppy drive. Most recovery programs I have used will let you exit to DOS. Once booted and at the A prompt you could ghost the contents of the drive with the filesystem unencrypted. Usually the descriptor bit is changed when you press F10. For example: A PC I used insisted it did not have a FAT filesystem, but windows 98 said it was FAT32. Upon checking the system had a drive overlay installed.

I read info on the overlay and the authors said the file system type is changed.

Example Descriptor Information
0x00 = FAT12
0x01 = FAT16
0x02 = FAT32
0x03 = NTFS4
0x04 = NTFS5
0x05 = Unknown

When you boot normally the partiton is not seen because the MBR says the typw isa 0x05. When you press F10 the PC changes the descriptor to 0x02 for FAT32 and boots. Your recovery may be similar. Note - I made up the descriptor bit information. The concept is real.