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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.
Older, less common BIOS-bootable devices include floppy disk drives, Zip drives, and LS-120 drives. Typically, the system firmware (UEFI or BIOS) will allow the user to configure a boot order. If the boot order is set to "first, the DVD drive; second, the hard disk drive", then the firmware will try to boot from the DVD drive, and if this fails ...
During the boot phase, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are executed, along with the configuration settings files WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI. Virtual device drivers are also loaded in the startup process: they are most commonly loaded from the registry ( HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD ) or from the SYSTEM.INI file.
UEFI machines can have one of the following classes, which were used to help ease the transition to UEFI: [96] Class 0: Legacy BIOS; Class 1: UEFI with a CSM interface and no external UEFI interface. The only UEFI interfaces are internal to the firmware. Class 2: UEFI with CSM and external UEFI interfaces, eg. UEFI Boot.
rEFInd, a boot manager for UEFI systems. coreboot is a free implementation of the UEFI or BIOS and usually deployed with the system board, and field upgrades provided by the vendor if need be. Parts of coreboot becomes the systems BIOS and stays resident in memory after boot. Das U-Boot is a bootloader for embedded systems. It is used on ...
Award BIOS setup utility on a standard PC. A modern BIOS setup utility has a text user interface (TUI) or graphical user interface (GUI) accessed by pressing a certain key on the keyboard when the PC starts. Usually, the key is advertised for short time during the early startup, for example "Press DEL to enter Setup".
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.
During the POST, the BIOS must integrate multiple competing, changing, and even mutually exclusive standards and initiatives for the matrix of hardware and operating systems the PC is expected to support, although at most only simple memory tests and the setup screen are displayed. The principal duties of the main BIOS during POST include: