How do I know if my hidden recovery partition is damaged?

[yiplong]

I have finished a clean install of XP and formatted the hard drive. Some told me that the recovery partition might be damaged in the process, so that I cannot restore the computer back to factory setting if necessary. How do I find out if it has been damaged, short of actually attempting a restore?

[ThinkPad]

Restart your computer and push the Thinkvantage button, see if the program executes properly.

[ryengineer]

I have finished a clean install of XP and formatted the hard drive....snip

There is nothing to look for if you formatted your entire HDD.

[ThinkPad]

Did you install via recovery disks or a retail version of XP?

[Puttagee]

Formating wouldn't affect the Hidden Partition. If the partitions were touched then you will have a problem...

[ryengineer]

Formating wouldn't affect the Hidden Partition.

Unfortunately, that is not true.

[yiplong]

after hitting the ThinkVantage button at start up, it boots into "Rescue & Recovery 4". I then have option to restore back to a prior restore point or a factor restore (don't know if that option works, but I don't want to try it).

however, this seems to have nothing to do with the hidden partition, because my computer still boots into rescue and recovery even when I have the hidden partition disabled.

[Puttagee]

Hmmmm, doesn't seem that format affected the HPA after all!!!!

It's been a long time since I used Rescue & Recovery but since you're getting the option to do a factory restore I would say that the HPA is ok. Enabling and Disabling the HPA changes whether the partition is visible or not. I believe that option also determines if the HPA can be changed.

[ryengineer]

Hmmmm, doesn't seem that format affected the HPA after all!!!!....snip

T6x series doesn't come with HPA.