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May 17th, 2007 by eugene

Major Disk Structures and the Boot Process

Reprinted, with permission, from The PC Guide
Major Disk Structures and the Boot Process
 Reference Guide - Hard Disk Drives 
  • A Brief History of the Hard Disk Drive
  • Construction and Operation of the Hard Disk Drive
  • Hard Disk Geometry and Low-Level Data Structures
  • Hard Disk Performance, Quality and Reliability
  • Hard Disk BIOS and Capacity Factors
  • Hard Disk Interfaces and Configuration
  • Hard Disk Logical Structures and File Systems
    • Operating Systems and File Systems
    • PC File Systems
    • Major Disk Structures and the Boot Process
      • Master Boot Record (MBR)
      • Primary, Extended and Logical Partitions
      • Volume Boot Sectors
      • Active Partitions and Boot Managers
      • The DOS Boot Process
      • Boot Sector Viruses
    • FAT File System Disk Volume Structures
    • Clusters and File Allocation
    • Partitioning, Partition Sizes and Drive Lettering
    • Disk Partitioning and Formatting Programs
    • Disk Compression

There are several major disk structures that are used to organize and control the storage of information on the PC using the FAT / FAT32 / VFAT file system. These structures are important to understand, since they control the way the hard disk works from a software perspective.

Next: Master Boot Record (MBR)

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