Reserved sectors on disk that are used to load the operating system. On startup, the computer looks for the master boot record (MBR) or something similarly named, which is typically the first sector in the first partition of the disk. The MBR contains a program that reads the partition table which points to the first sector that contains the operating system. That sector contains another small program that causes the computer to read the operating system.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
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