Patent ID: 7024549

Claim:
A disk drive for use with a computer system, the disk drive comprising: a. a host-accessible user partition including: i. a user partition address range; ii. a host-selected operating system stored within the user partition address range; and iii. a host-selected master boot record stored within the user partition address range, the host selected master boot record identifying the host-selected operating system; b. a host-inaccessible hidden partition independent of the host-accessible user partition and including: i. a hidden partition address range outside the user partition address range; ii. a drive-selected boot record stored within the hidden partition address range, the drive-selected boot record configured to load an instruction set capable of executing an application program having a user interface for accepting a user selection identifying the user-selectable function to be performed, to execute the application program, to accept the user selection identifying the user-selectable function to be performed, and to load an operating system configured to perform the user-selectable function; and iii. at least one drive-selected operating system configurable to perform at least one user-selectable function; and c. a disk controller configured to receive a command from the computer system to read the host-selected master boot record, and to send in place of the host-selected master boot record the drive-selected boot record to the computer system in response to receipt of the command.