There also needs to be somewhere that the BIOS can load the initial boot program that starts the process of loading the operating system. It is also sometimes called the master boot sector or even just the boot sector . When the BIOS boots the machine, it will look here for instructions and information on how to boot the disk and load the operating system. There is only room in the master partition table for the information describing four partitions. Therefore, a hard disk can have only four true partitions, also called primary partitions .
Any additional partitions are logical partitions that are linked to one of the primary partitions.
Partitions are discussed here . One of the partitions is marked as active , indicating that it is the one that the computer should use for booting up. Since the master boot code is the first program executed when you turn on your PC, this is a favorite place for virus writers to target . This page has been served 41189 times. Copyright 1997-2001 Charles M. Kozierok .