boot sector
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boot sector
A reserved area on a computer's storage device (hard disk, optical disc, etc.) that is used to load the control program into memory. On startup, the computer loads the code in the boot sector....
Dictionary
Definition: boot sector
A reserved area on a computer's storage device (hard disk, optical disc, etc.) that is used to load the control program into memory. On startup, the computer loads the code in the boot sector. When executed, either the operating system is loaded, or another program is called to load the operating system.
In a partitioned storage device on a PC, the boot sector contains the "master boot record" (MBR). The MBR contains the partition table, which defines how the device has been logically divided. In a non-partitioned device, such as a USB drive, the boot sector contains the "volume boot record" (VBR). See GPT.
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