PC Boot Process

First,let me explain what “Boot” really means.

Boot means “to take off”,which means for the computer is to start the machine,this process occurs
between pushing the Power button on the case,until arriving at the login screen of the operating system.

When the power button is pressed,the computer beeps and starts initiating boot process.

The first thing to appear on the screen is the BIOS POST screen.

BIOS is an acronym for “Basic Input/Output System” ,the BIOS controls how the computer will boot.

In most cases,the user would want to boot from his hard drive,because this is where his data is.

But sometimes,he might want to boot from CD or DVD,because he wants to install a new operating
system.

The BIOS can be thought of as the link between computer software and hardware.

The POST screen looks something like this :

POST is an acronym for “Power-on self-test”.

This step precedes the actual booting process,from this step,you can change some booting options,like
the primary boot device,which is the device that will give the computer booting instructions.

It also makes sure that the BIOS is intact and fully functional.

It has been called that because in this stage,the computer checks the memory,CPU type and other
hardware required for booting.

From this step,you can choose to change boot options through the BIOS options screen,which looks
like this :

This screen is accessible by pressing the Delete button or some other button as showed on the POST
screen

From this screen,you can set options like boot order,CPU and memory voltage and what hardware will
be available to the system.

When exiting this screen,whether you saved your changes or not,the system will reboot,and the POST
screen will reappear,then the boot process should continue as normal.
There is a second POST screen which shows more information about the state of the drives connected
to the computer,including USB connectors,network adapters,hard disks,....etc.

This screen looks like this :

After this screen,the BIOS starts to search for a bootable device in the devices specified in its
configuration,which was explained earlier

When it finds a device suitable for booting,it starts to read the boot sector of this device.

In the case of a hard disk,the boot sector is often called MBR or “Master Boot Record”, this is a group
of bytes on the hard disk that contain booting information like which partition contains the operating
system,for example.

The actual loading of an operating system is usually done using a program called a Boot Loader.
The boot loader usually knows where operating systems are on a hard drive,and if it does not,it prompts
the user for input to locate the desired operating system.

If more than one operating system are present on a hard drive,the boot loader asks the user to specify
which operating system to load,as shown here :

After an operating system is chosen,the boot loader starts the kernel of the operating system,which
loads the drivers needed for the operating system to function properly.