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On system with BIOS firmware, the BIOS invokes MBR boot code from a hard disk drive at startup. The MBR boot code and the VBR boot code are OS-specific. In Microsoft Windows, the MBR boot code tries to find an active partition (the MBR is only 512 bytes), then executes the VBR boot code of an active partition.
Version 2.0 of the Desktop Management BIOS specification was released on March 6, 1996 by American Megatrends (AMI), Award Software, Dell, Intel, Phoenix Technologies, and SystemSoft Corporation. It introduced 16-bit plug-and-play functions used to access the structures from Windows 95. [7]
The second-stage boot loader does not need drivers for its own operation, but may instead use generic storage access methods provided by system firmware such as the BIOS, though typically with restricted hardware functionality and lower performance. [13] In x86 computers, third-stage bootloaders are include IO.SYS, NTLDR, BOOTMGR and GRUB.
UEFI boot support was introduced with version 1.3.2, localization with 1.4.0 and Windows To Go with 2.0. The last version compatible with Windows XP and Vista is 2.18, while the last version compatible with Windows 7 operating systems is Rufus 3.22, as Rufus 4.0 increased the minimum version requirement to require Windows 8 or later.
Typical POST screen (AMI BIOS) Typical UEFI-compliant BIOS POST screen (Phoenix Technologies BIOS) Summary screen after POST and before booting an operating system (AMI BIOS) A power-on self-test ( POST ) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on.
The Windows boot manager is located at the \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ subfolder of the EFI system partition. [23] On Windows XP 64-Bit Edition and later, access to the EFI system partition is obtained by running the mountvol command. Mounts the EFI system partition on the specified drive. Available on Itanium-based computers only. [24]
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MemTest86(+) is designed to run as a stand-alone, self-contained program from a bootable USB flash drive, CD-ROM, floppy disk, or from a suitable boot manager without an operating system present. [24] This is because the program must directly control the hardware being tested and leave as much of the RAM space as possible for examination.