few years ago i spend a week end searching and making up
this method for ghost recovery partition with windows XP

I noticed today Acronis true image also got a ready made Boot manager
that can make a secure hidden partition and use F11 at boot up to recover.

F11  or F10 at boot up to recover using ghost

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14127&pid=111856&mode=threaded&start=0#entry111856
==============================================================
Acronis(8) Startup Recovery Manager F11 at Boot up to recover

Acronis True Image Personal provides Acronis Startup Recovery Manager to run the program without loading the operating system. This feature is useful if Windows

won't load for some reason. Using it, you can run Acronis True Image Personal by itself to restore damaged partitions from images.
.......................................................................
Register now and receive Acronis True Image 8.0 Personal for Free!

http://www.acronis.co.uk/mag/cshop/ati8pe
....................................................................................

To use Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (it must be activated), turn on your PC and press F11, when you see the "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" message. This will run a standalone version of Acronis True Image Personal that only slightly differs from the complete version. For information on restoring damaged partitions, .
Be careful! Disk letters in standalone Acronis True Image Personalmight sometimes differ from Windows notation.
To activate the program, click Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
Acronis Startup Recovery Manager cannot be activated if Acronis Secure Zone is missing on the hard disk. If you have not created this Zone before, you will be prompted to create it (see section 3.2.1 above), then Acronis Startup Recovery Manager will be activated. Otherwise, Acronis Startup Recovery Manager will be activated immediately.
When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated it overwrites the Master Boot Record (MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third party boot managers installed, then you will have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders (e.g. LiLo and GRUB) you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.


Regards Ben
:)