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Since Windows NT 3.1 (the first version of Windows NT), [4] Microsoft has defined the terms as follows: The system partition (or system volume) [5] is a primary partition that contains the boot loader, a piece of software responsible for booting the operating system. [6]: 1087 This partition holds the boot sector and is marked active. [7]: 970
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.
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.
In Windows NT, the booting process is initiated by NTLDR in versions before Vista and the Windows Boot Manager (BOOTMGR) in Vista and later. [4] The boot loader is responsible for accessing the file system on the boot drive, starting ntoskrnl.exe, and loading boot-time device drivers into memory.
Read or write support Boot support Note Windows 9x: 1995-08-24 IA-32: No [b] No Windows XP: 2001-10-25 IA-32 No No Windows Server 2003: 2003-04-24 IA-32 No No Windows Server 2003 SP1: 2005-03-30 IA-32 Yes No MBR takes precedence in hybrid configuration. Windows Vista: 2006-07-22 IA-32 Yes No MBR takes precedence in hybrid configuration. Windows ...
If the value in the register is set to less than the actual hard drive size then effectively a host protected area is created. It is protected because the OS will work with only the value in the register that is returned by the IDENTIFY DEVICE command and thus will normally be unable to address the parts of the drive that lie within the HPA.
This program may itself be a small program designed to load a larger and more capable program, i.e., the full operating system. To enable booting without the requirement either for a mass storage device or to write to the boot medium, it is usual for the boot program to use some system RAM as a RAM disk for temporary file storage.
There is a possibility of slowing down or freezing Windows XP Pro if certain Windows drivers that are associated with high-volume data transfers to CD writers using certain CD/DVD burning software installed. [11] Proprietary format/closed platform The U3 platform is a "closed" platform / proprietary format.