Blue Access IBM button not working on T41

[jx3000]

When you click the blue access IBM button it should take you to the predesktop area.

I have done a few stupid things like installing http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... AK.html%20.

Because I thought it would help in creating recovery CDs. Now I know better.

This caused me not to be able to go to the original predesktop area. Instead it would load something like a minimal XP with Opera web browser. I think it created an "IBM Service" partition of 310MB FAT32.

I recently recieved the IBM recovery CDs and I followed the instructions to get it installed.

It installed XP in the first partition. During this process it had the usual pkunzip stuff you see when installing from predesktop area.

I do not know what state the HDD is in, I cannot access the predesktop area to unhide my hidden partition.

When I press the Access IBM button it does the following.
"Starting PC-DOS"

Then

"Bad or missing A:\RAMDRIVE.sys"
"Error in CONFIG.SYS line 4"

Then the screen goes blank a briefly displays,

"Failed to open boot manager file MGR.DAT"

Then,

"Rebooting System"


Ideally I would like to get the laptop to 100% factory default behaviour. With a hidden partition containing the recovery data and the predesktop area working.

Is the predesktop area loaded from the hidden partition when I press the Access IBM button?

[eriqesque]

All the predesktop stuff is still there in the IBM Rescue and Recovery area.
It's on the left hand side of the browser.
If you prefer the old predesktop are just uninstall the Resue and recovery and it will return.
To turn off the hidden partition you go into the BIOS and from the security tab you can acces it there.
To go directly ro the BIOS just press F1 at the IBM splash screen.

[jx3000]

Okay the last line you wrote is helpful.

If you read my post again you will realise I blew away the other stuff somehow.

Edit: I have unhidden the partition.

If I want my HDD in factory condition do I need to delete all partitions so that it is all unpartitioned space?

If the entire HDD is unpartitioned space, and I run the recovery CDs will it create one XP partition and one hidden partition with old predesktop area?