I have a Keysight N9020A MXA spectrum analyzer with the older single-core CPU module with the non-removable hard drive. It's a mechanical 40 GB drive with a parallel ATA interface, and I figured it's a matter of time before it dies so I made an image of it using 'ddrescue'. ddrescue found one bad sector on the entire drive, but was otherwise able to make an image. I wrote the image onto a 64 GB compact flash card in a CF to PATA adapter, and could verify that the drive is readable. It shows four partitions: Windows XP, User Data, Calibration and Recovery.
When I installed the CF card in the instrument, it does boot into XP, but it shows only the 'C:' drive. The other three are not visible, and the spectrum analyzer application refuses to start. Using the "Disk Management" utility (after logging in as Administrator) shows four partitions on the disk, but only one is 'active'. I'm unable to mark the others as active, the option is grayed out. Using a PATA to USB adapter, I plugged the drive into a Windows 11 machine and all four partitions were visible and I could see the files on them.
The instrument boots and runs fine after reinstalling the original hard drive.
Any clues on how to correctly image and restore this drive?