A method, apparatus, system, and signal-bearing medium that in an embodiment save a protected area of a storage device by booting to the protected area, copying the contents of the protected area to the user area of the storage device, rebooting to the user area, and then saving the user area to a backup storage device. In another embodiment, a restore mechanism is provided by copying the saved contents of the protected area from the backup storage device to the user area of the storage device, booting into the protected area of the storage device, and copying the saved contents into the protected area. In this way, in various embodiments the contents of the protected area of a storage device can be saved and restored.