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What are Boot Disks
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WHAT ARE BOOT DISKS AND WHY WOULD I NEED ONE!A
Program is a set of instructions for
the computer. Software
is a
program or
group of
programs to tell the
computer how to function. The
operating
system is
a set of instructions telling the
computer how to interface (hookup or communicate) with its input and output
devices and any other parts of its system.
Recent types of operating systems on
microcomputers are MS DOS (Micro‑Soft
Disk Operating
System), OS2, UNIX, and
Macintosh OS, Linux, Windows 9X (95, 98), Windows NT or 2000, and Windows ME (Millenium).
The majority of IBM PC's and
compatibles in the past used MS
DOS or PC DOS (a special version of MS DOS for IBM's only).
Currently they use Windows 9x, (9x=95, or 98, etc.), ME, or Windows NT.
Some systems use UNIX, and Linux is also becoming increasingly popular in
certain situations where the PC does not need access to large software
selections. If your computer does
not have an OS or your Boot Device is damaged it can not run.
This can happen if it is new or has had a virus or other problem.
In this case you will have to have a boot disk to start it. WHAT
HAPPENS WHEN YOU START YOUR COMPUTER A Computer normally starts with the following procedure:®Your turn the switch On ®The Power Supply sends power to
Motherboard ®ROM Chips do POST (Power on Self Test) ®I/O (Input/Output) Set up occurs (PCI Plug
and Play devices, such as modems, etc. are configured) ®System seeks MBR (Master Boot Record) from
the Boot Device or Devices (CD ROM, Hard Drive, Floppy, etc.) ®If none found on boot device system stops and says
"NON
SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR
REPLACE AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY" (Or something similar) ®IF MBR is Found then instructions there
are executed and they put a secondary loader in RAM ®Secondary Loader finds IO.SYS and
MSDOS.SYS or other system files and carries out their instructions.
Which usually leaves them into memory ®They usually Load other device drivers,
for example DOS checks for CONFIG.SYS ®IF FOUND system reconfigured as told ®DOS Loads COMMAND.COM ®Checks for AUTOEXEC.BAT in root ®IF Found command.com carries out commands
found. ®IF Not Found Command.com displays date and
time prompts. Modern
BIOSes allow booting from many different devices.
This is configured in the BIOS setup of the computer. When a boot device
does not have an Operating System, for example when a formatted floppy without
and OS is in the A drive when an IBM PC compatible computer starts the computer
tries to read the disk, but does not find the instructions it needs to continue
operation. As a result it displays
something like: "NON
SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR REPLACE
AND STRIKE ANY KEY WHEN READY" on
the screen, and waits for you to do something.
At this stage you must either remove the device or replace it with one
with an OS or go into the BIOS and change the boot procedure.
If you do either, the computer will read the necessary instructions and
then begin normal operations. |
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