Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On Apple Mac computers using Intel x86-64 processor architecture, the EFI system partition is initially left blank and unused for booting into macOS. [13] [14]However, the EFI system partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates [15] and for the Microsoft Windows bootloader for Mac computers configured to boot into a Windows partition using Boot Camp.
It can be used to boot multiple operating systems, including triple-boot setups with software such as Apple's Boot Camp Assistant. It also provides a way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment. [6] The name "rEFIt" is likely a play on the terms "refit" and "EFI". Development on "rEFIt" was abandoned by Christoph Pfisterer in 2010.
All modern personal computer operating systems support GPT. Some, including macOS and Microsoft Windows on the x86 architecture, support booting from GPT partitions only on systems with EFI firmware, but FreeBSD and most Linux distributions can boot from GPT partitions on systems with either the BIOS or the EFI firmware interface.
GNU-EFI and TianoCore are supported as main development platforms for writing binary UEFI applications in C to launch right from the rEFInd GUI menu. Typical purposes of an EFI application are fixing boot problems and programmatically modifying settings within UEFI environment, which would otherwise be performed from within the BIOS of a personal computer (PC) without UEFI.
In the UEFI Shell, the SmbiosView command can retrieve and display the SMBIOS data. [15] [16] One can often enter the UEFI shell by entering the system firmware settings, and then selecting the shell as a boot option (as opposed to a DVD drive or hard drive).
In these cases a computer can often be "redirected" to boot from a USB device through use of an initial bootable CD or floppy disk. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Some Intel-based Macintosh computers have limitations when booting from USB devices – while the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) firmware can recognize and boot from USB drives, it can do ...
The boot partition (or boot volume) [5] is the disk partition that contains the operating system folder, known as the system root or %systemroot% in Windows NT. [6]: 174 Before Windows 7, the system and boot partitions were, by default, the same and were given the "C:" drive letter.
The EFI System partition holds a filesystem and files used by the UEFI, while the BIOS boot partition is used in BIOS-based systems and accessed without a filesystem by holding raw binary code. The size requirements for a BIOS boot partition are quite low so it can be as small as about 30 KiB; however, as future boot loaders might require more ...