Volume boot record

A volume boot record (VBR) (also known as a volume boot sector, a partition boot record or a partition boot sector) is a type of boot sector introduced by the IBM Personal Computer. It may be found on a partitioned data storage device, such as a hard disk, or an unpartitioned device, such as a floppy disk, and contains machine code for bootstrapping programs (usually, but not necessarily, operating systems) stored in other parts of the device. On non-partitioned storage devices, it is the first sector of the device. On partitioned devices, it is the first sector of an individual partition on the device, with the first sector of the entire device being a Master Boot Record (MBR) containing the partition table. A volume boot record (VBR) (also known as a volume boot sector, a partition boot record or a partition boot sector) is a type of boot sector introduced by the IBM Personal Computer. It may be found on a partitioned data storage device, such as a hard disk, or an unpartitioned device, such as a floppy disk, and contains machine code for bootstrapping programs (usually, but not necessarily, operating systems) stored in other parts of the device. On non-partitioned storage devices, it is the first sector of the device. On partitioned devices, it is the first sector of an individual partition on the device, with the first sector of the entire device being a Master Boot Record (MBR) containing the partition table. The code in volume boot records is invoked either directly by the machine's firmware or indirectly by code in the master boot record or a boot manager. Code in the MBR and VBR is in essence loaded the same way. Invoking a VBR via a boot manager is known as chain loading. Some dual-boot systems, such as NTLDR (the boot loader for all releases of Microsoft's Windows NT-derived operating systems up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003), take copies of the bootstrap code that individual operating systems install into a single partition's VBR and store them in disc files, loading the relevant VBR content from file after the boot loader has asked the user which operating system to bootstrap.In Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and newer versions, NTLDR was replaced; the boot-loader functionality is instead provided by two new components: WINLOAD.EXE and the Windows Boot Manager. In file systems such as FAT12 (except for in DOS 1.x), FAT16, FAT32, HPFS and NTFS, the VBR also contains a BIOS Parameter Block (BPB) that specifies the location and layout of the principal on-disk data structures for the file system. (A detailed discussion of the sector layout of FAT VBRs, the various FAT BPB versions and their entries can be found in the FAT article.) The presence of an IBM PC compatible boot loader for x86-CPUs in the boot sector is by convention indicated by a two-byte hexadecimal sequence called the boot sector signature (55h at fixed offset +1FEh and AAh at +1FFh) for sector sizes of 512 bytes or more. For 512 byte sectors, this also marks the end of the sector. VBRs on smaller and larger sectors may show signatures at the end of the actual sector size as well, however, the semantics described herein apply to the 16-bit signature at +1FEh only. This signature indicates the presence of at least a dummy boot loader which is safe to be executed, even if it may not be able to actually load an operating system. It does not indicate the presence of a (or even a particular) file system or operating system, although some old versions of DOS prior to 3.3 relied on it in their process to detect FAT-formatted media (newer versions do not). Boot code for other platforms or CPUs should not use this signature, since this may lead to a crash when the BIOS passes execution to the boot sector assuming that it contains valid executable code. This implies that FAT12/FAT16 media to be used also by very old versions of DOS must maintain the signature even if they do not contain an operating system or are meant to be bootable on other platforms only; consequently they must contain at least an x86 compatible (dummy) loader as well (for comparison, see examples of FAT on the Atari ST and with MSX-DOS). Nevertheless, some media for other platforms erroneously contain the signature even without a x86 compatible dummy loader, making the check not 100% reliable in practice. The signature is tested for by most System BIOSes since (at least) the IBM PC/AT (but not by the original IBM PC and some other machines). Even more so, it is also checked by most MBR boot loaders before passing control to the boot sector. Some BIOSes (like the IBM PC/AT) perform the check only for fixed disk / removable drives, while for floppies and superfloppies it is enough to start with a byte greater or equal to 06h and the first nine words not to contain the same value, before the boot sector is accepted as valid, thereby avoiding the explicit test for 55h, AAh on floppies. Since old boot sectors (i.e. very old CP/M-86 and DOS media) sometimes do not feature this signature despite the fact that they can be booted successfully, the check can be disabled in some environments. This also reflects the fact that floppies can be formatted to use smaller sector sizes than 512 bytes. If the BIOS or MBR code does not detect a valid boot sector and therefore cannot pass execution to the boot sector code, it will try the next boot device in the row. If they all fail it will typically display an error message and invoke INT 18h. This will either start up optional resident software in ROM (ROM BASIC), attempt to remote boot via network, reboot the system via INT 19h after user confirmation, or cause the system to halt the bootstrapping process until the next power-up.