Talk:Master boot record
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[edit] Windows 2K+ serial number
I put this back in. Even though I'm an OSS fan myself, the majority of hard drives in use today have this serial number; people who have one may need to know what it is.
[edit] I'm inclined to rototill...
As no other OS besides those associated with i386 (or variant) PCs uses the term MBR, I'm inclined to rewrite things as such. Unfortunately, partition table redirects here currently - and MBR and partition table are most definitely not synonymous. Any comments from y'all? --moof 22:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Repetitive Sentences
Currently the first entry under References includes two sentences with similar meanings, one right after the other:
The status fields in the extended partition table records are used by boot manager programs to determine which partitions are bootable. (In IBM nomenclature, such partitions are described as bootable.)
I propose that the section in parentheses be deleted unless someone with more knowledge of this topic can give these two more distinct meanings. --Jarsyl 05:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Misplaced Content?
This text from the middle of the Backing up the MBR section seems inappropriate for this page, or at least for this section. I could correct the grammar but this would make it stand out less. Would anyone care to second it being deleted?
If you are backing up a hard drive, also known as ghosting, and are having issues with new hard drive saying the paging file is not found, then running 'fdisk /fixmbr', (done from a bootable floppy disk since cannot log into Windows), will most likely solve your problems.
--Jarsyl 05:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
- Jarsyl, yes, I second your opinion and have removed the paragraph as being inappropriate, because it really had nothing to do with the MBR sector. Daniel B. Sedory 07:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Relocation of MBR
According to [present version], the MBR code usually relocates itself elsewhere in memory, and -- often at 0x7A00. I do not know which one code relocates to 7A00H, but the most used by a far margin is the code originally written by David Litton at IBM, and all its derivatives including the ones from Microsoft, and they relocate to 00600H. Many clones also chose the same address. So I would like to know which evidence led to the present text. Antoinel 12:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Antoinel, I agree, and changed the page from often at 0x7A00 to "often at 0x0600 (for Microsoft code)." The only reference I could find to 0x7A00 was in a single personal code example at a forum, but I have no idea where BruceEwing (who added that material according to the edit history) got his information from. Daniel B. Sedory 03:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Footnotes, References or Both?
Although there's definitely a difference between these two terms, since someone else already dropped both kinds into the "References" section, for the time being I'm going to clean up the page by removing the "Footnotes" section title that has nothing under it. After reviewing other article formats, we may return it to the page. Comments? Daniel B. Sedory 12:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- Apparently, Wikipedia makes use of only the <ref> tag (nothing for Footnotes apart from References as discussed above), so both are now listed under "Notes and References". Daniel B. Sedory 09:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Move "IBM extension" bytes in 1st Table to separate History section?
At the top of the page we have a table titled "Structure of a standard master boot record," yet it includes something called "IBM extensions" of 9-byte records; which I haven't been able to find a single reference to anywhere else on the Internet! Neither have I come across it in my (admittedly) small scope of experience with computers that are not IBM PC-compatibles. Anyone else encounter these? I have a feeling they are from an archaic box no longer supported by anyone, so it seems ridiculous to include this in the first table; if even under a history section. Daniel B. Sedory 10:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
- After examining the References which Jarsyl commented on here under "Repetitive Sentences," I noticed the phrase "IBM Boot Manager" and searched the Net for that; turns out their scheme is the same one used by ("repackaged" as many sites said) early Power Quest Boot Magic (BM) programs! I see no reason for us to keep parts of a Boot manager in our so-called Standard MBR table! It would obviously become a total mess if we included all the data from every well-known boot manager there; such as GRUB and LiLo, not to mention commercial managers, such as OSL2000. Therefore, I propose to either move such data to a separate section, or just reference it in the Notes. Daniel B. Sedory 11:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
