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 FAT File System Disk Volume Structures Clusters and File Allocation Partitioning, Partition Sizes and Drive Lettering Disk Partitioning and Formatting Programs FDISK FORMAT SYS Partition Magic Disk Compression Author: Charles M. Kozierok  Normally the operating system files that allow a hard disk to be booted are placed at the front of the disk at the time that the boot volume is high-level formatted, using the FORMAT command (with the /S parameter). It is also possible, however, to "convert" an existing disk so that it is bootable, by using the SYS command. SYS copies the operating system files from the volume that the system was booted with (hard disk or floppy) to the target volume. SYS is normally used to create bootable floppy disks from non-bootable disks. It is also sometimes used to upgrade DOS versions on hard disks; you boot the floppy of the new DOS version and then SYS the new operating system files to the hard disk. (Newer operating systems like Windows 95 take care of this sort of work internally, and don't require this sort of manual operation). Next: Partition Magic

© Copyright 1997-2005 Charles M. Kozierok. All Rights Reserved.
Write: Webmaster