Partitioned hard disk drives and partitioning scheme for hard disk drives

摘要

A partitioning scheme for disk drives, and the partitioned disk drive itself, in which one or more operating systems may be installed in phantom partitions. The first time a computer housing the disk drive is booted up, the user is given a choice among those operating systems. The particular operating system that the user selects is installed into a data partition, and the phantom partitions are removed, thus preventing use of the unselected operating systems. The method is applicable to out of box audits during manufacture, and also may be used by retailers to facilitate reinstallation of software on demo computers that prospective customers have altered.