Where is the tattoo?
On a Packard Bell, the Tattoo is not only stored on the motherboard, but is also stored on the hard drive (in a hidden sector). Since the Tattoo is the security layer for these systems, it must exist in both areas (except in certain circumstances where it only exists in one place, but it does exist in .bin file format on the bootfloppy or Master CDs) in order for the recovery to proceed. If one of the Tattoos is missing, or the details are different (e.g. the serial numbers do not match) then the recovery will not start. The EXTHS is purely for configuration information, and there is a lot more information to store than the Tattoo. The EXTHS is therefore only stored on the hard drive, in another hidden sector. If the EXTHS is missing or corrupt then the recovery also will not start, and you can expect to see an error message such as “No Valid Configuration Information Found”. The Tattoo and EXTHS also are backed up as TATTOO.BIN and EXTHS.BIN files on the original or self-made recovery
