I had a run in with a Compaq back in '96 -- I tried to erase the DOS partition on a drive from another Compaq prior to adding it as a second drive.
FDisk showed me 2 partitions (Compaq and DOS partitions) on the original drive. I took the original drive clean out of the computer (totally disconnected, lying on my desk 2 feet away) and put in the soon to be second drive in. FDisk showed me only the DOS partition on the 'second' drive, so I deleted it.
Imagine my surprise, when I put the original drive back in its original place and discovered that it had no DOS partition. Apparently Compaq stores HDD partition information in the BIOS, or did at the time, anyway.
The IS&T guys were able to beat it back into submission, but I've been leery of Compaq's ever since then -- who knows what other sort of silly ... stuff they routinely pull?
From your experience, Bob, I can only conclude that the folks who set up the partition info storage in the BIOS thing evidently survived the merger with HP.
