Patent ID: 8137410

Claim:
A method for securing and disabling an electronic device, comprising: in an electronic device, automatically determining whether a hidden partition in the electronic device is valid, wherein the electronic device comprises a disk drive, wherein the disk drive comprises the hidden partition and an application component associated with tracking and locating the electronic device, and wherein the hidden partition comprises a non-viewable component associated with tracking and locating the electronic device; in response to a determination that the hidden partition is valid, automatically loading the non-viewable component and transferring control to the non-viewable component; and performing, with the non-viewable component, operations comprising: automatically determining whether the application component operated correctly during last power-up of the electronic device; in response to a determination that the application component did not operate correctly during last power-up of the electronic device, automatically restoring the application component from a backup fileset; and automatically placing the electronic device under control of power on self test (POST) to proceed with powering-up the electronic device in response to a determination that the application component operated correctly during last power-up of the electronic device.