I have the same question about Dell computers.  I put a new HD on a 2001 Dell Dimension 8200 with Win XP Pro (I used a Dell OEM XP Pro CD), and it never ran right after that.  It is the slowest running installation of XP I have ever seen.  It boots, but slower than molasses in January.  When I bought the computer it had Win Me on it. The 8200 is now sitting in a closet gathering dust because no one could stand using it.  We timed the boot at nearly 15 minutes, and there wasn't that much software on the machine.  These proprietary machines must have some built-in self destruct mechanism if you remove their special partition.




Richard Glazier <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>The question is, does the special Compaq partition need to be there,
>and why?  (And yes, it is old and I have newer computers.)
>
>A friend gave me an old Compaq 7360 computer (p-500) to
>fool around with. The HD was blown, but I also got the factory
>restore disks.
>
>I did a factory restore on a different totally clean HD.
>I had the box working fine and started fooling with the HD
>using Acronis Partition Expert2003 and True Image7 or 8.
>
>Along the way (somewhere), I deleted the partition that Compaq
>had put a lot of their stuff in since it was around 1 G or 2 out of a
>20G hd. The clean HD was an archive drive of mine (I cleared) and it
>had seen very little actual running time.
>
>The reason for the question is: After the partitions were fooled with,
>the computer rarely boots anymore. (But it still does sometimes?.)
>The hardware boots fine from a floppy (win98) IF the HD is disconnected...
>
>It is an odd set of circumstances that I have not dealt with before,
>and I can start to understand why some members have been very
>vocal about these OEM type restores, etc...
>
>The question is, does the special Compaq partition need to be there,
>and why?
>                                                   Rick Glazier
>
>
>


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