How does a computer go from off to login? Booting a Computer How does a computer go from off to login?
Power On When the power button is pressed the motherboard sends a signal to the PS_ON pin of the P1 Connector (Green Wire). The chipset holds all devices in reset until PWR_OK is received from Power Supply CPU Initializes and loads a program from BIOS which runs the POST and then loads a boot loader from the Master Boot Record
The Master Boot Record The MBR is found on the 1st sector of the 0th Cylinder, using the 0th head MBR Contains Master Boot Loader and the Partition Table
Master Boot Loader Looks at Partition Table for boot partition Calculates physical location of FS Boot Sector Loads FS Boot code to memory Transfers control to FS Boot Code
Different Boots for Different OS MSDOS v1 to 7: IO.sys using msdos.sys Win95/98/ME: IO.sys using msdos.sys WinNT/2K/XP: NTLDR using boot.ini Vista/7 : Boot Manager using B