I forgot about that. Oops. By the way, are you sure it's not just the BIOS controller? I'm pretty sure the BIOS itself HAS to be on the motherboard.
This Compaq BIOS program everyone has been talking about is called "F10 Setup". When a Compaq is reformatted it loses the "F10 Setup" program... The BIOS is still their and operates correctly... The only thing though...is that without F10 Setup you cannot modify the BIOS. Just remember that Compaq creates a different F10 setup program for each model, so if you lose it in a reformat, make sure you download the correct one according to your model number.

Also: Not having F10 Setup will not cause any problems You just won't be able to modify BIOS Settings (As mention above)