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On IBM PC compatible machines, the BIOS is ignorant of the distinction between VBRs and MBRs, and of partitioning. The firmware simply loads and runs the first sector of the storage device. [3] If the device is a floppy or USB flash drive, that will be a VBR. If the device is a hard disk, that will be an MBR.
The boot code in the VBR can assume that the BIOS has set up its data structures and interrupts and initialized the hardware. The code should not assume more than 32 KB of memory to be present for fail-safe operation; [1] if it needs more memory it should query INT 12h for it, since other pre-boot code (such as f.e. BIOS extension overlays, encryption systems, or remote bootstrap loaders) may ...
DR-DOS 7.07 (with BDOS 7.4/7.7) by Paul introduced new bootstrap loaders and updated disk tools in order to combine support for CHS and LBA disk access, the FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and the differing bootstrapping conventions of DR-DOS, PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, REAL/32 and LOADER into a single NEWLDR MBR and boot sector, so that the ...
WIMBoot reduces Windows disk usage by keeping system files in a compressed WIM image on a separate hidden disk partition. [82] Similarly to CompactOS, Windows system directories only contain sparse files marked by a reparse point with a WOF tag, and Windows Overlay Filter driver decompresses file contents on-the-fly from the WIM image. WIMBoot ...
The first stage of PC boot loaders (FSBL, first-stage boot loader) located on fixed disks and removable drives must fit into the first 446 bytes of the master boot record in order to leave room for the default 64-byte partition table with four partition entries and the two-byte boot signature, which the BIOS requires for a proper boot loader ...
IBM introduced the first version of fdisk (officially dubbed "Fixed Disk Setup Program") in March 1983, with the release of the IBM PC/XT computer (the first PC to store data on a hard disk) and the IBM PC DOS 2.0 operating system. fdisk version 1.0 can create one FAT12 partition, delete it, change the active partition, or display partition data. fdisk writes the master boot record, which ...
A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) [1] [note 1] is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc , and usually weighs less than 30 g (1 oz).
A modern PC's UEFI or BIOS firmware supports booting from various devices, typically a local solid-state drive or hard disk drive via the GPT or Master Boot Record (MBR) on such a drive or disk, an optical disc drive (using El Torito), a USB mass storage device (USB flash drive, memory card reader, USB hard disk drive, USB optical disc drive ...