Master Boot Record

KNOWING WHAT IS MBR ??

EXPLAINING MBR DIAGRAMMATICALLY ??

COMPONENTS OF MBR ??

LIMITATIONS OF THE MBR ??

DISK STRUCTURE WITH ONE PARTITION??

DISK STRUCTURE WITH MULTIPLE PARTITIONS ??

Usman Mansoor
Junaid Ali
Husnain Manzoor
Fahad Ali

General information

Short forMaster Boot Record,MBRis also sometimes referred

to as themaster boot block,master partition boot sector,
andsector 0.

MBR is the firstsectorof the computer hard drive that tells ..

how to load the operating system

how thehard driveis partitioned.

MBR Detail

Amaster boot record(MBR) is a special type ofboot sectorat

the very beginning ofpartitionedcomputermass storage
deviceslikefixed disksorremovable drivesintended for use
withIBM PC-compatiblesystems and beyond. The concept of MBRs
was publicly introduced in 1983 withPC DOS 2.0.

The MBR holds the information on how the logical partitions,

containingfile systems, are organized on that medium

This MBR code is usually referred to as aboot loader.

MBR partition entries and the MBR boot code used in commercial
operating systems, however, are limited to 32 bits.

Therefore, the maximum disk size supported on disks using 512byte sectors (whether real or emulated) by the MBR partitioning
scheme (without using non-standard methods) is limited to 2TB

Explaination

In the Picture , an example of a partitioned hard drive..

MBR is the first section of the hard drive

the computer looks at after theBIOShands control to the

first bootable drive.

Unlike the VBR, there is always only going to be a maximum

of one MBR on a partitioned hard drive.

MBR and partition table

stored in boot sector

Only one MBR per disk

CONTINUED

The MBR is also susceptible to boot sector viruses that can

corruptor remove the MBR.

can leave the hard drive unusable and prevent the computer
from booting up. For example, the Stone Empire Monkey Virus is
an example of an MBR virus.

The MBR consists of 512 or more bytes located in the first sector
of the drive.

It may contain one or more of:

In this context the boot sector may also be called a partition

sector.

Bootstrap code: The first 440 bytes of the MBR, from offset 0 to
offset 439, contain the Maser Bootstrap Loader Code.

Components Of MBR

The Master Boot Record (MBR)of a disk is composed of 4 parts.

1. Master Boot program (offset address 000H-0088H): It is

responsible for installation and operation of system boot program.

2. Error massage data area: Offset address 0089H-00E1H is error

massage and 00E2H-01FDH are all 0 byte.

3. DPT (Disk Partition Table) contains 4 partition entries, (offset

address 01BEH-01FDH), and every partition entry is 16 bytes. And
64 bytes are divided into Partition Entry 1, Partition Entry 2,
Partition Entry3, and Partition Entry 4.

4. End mark: Its offset address is 01FE-01FF and it is 55AA of 2

bytes. If the mark is wrong, the system can not be started.

Limitations of the MBR

The MBR contains information for up to four primary partitions

OR->three primary partitions and one extended partition.

This is because there are only four 16-byte partition table entries.

First, the MBR is written to strictly adhere to BIOS Int13 calls. This
means that the MBR must be contained within the first 1024
cylinders, 256 heads, and 63 sectors/track (i.e., 8 GB) of the hard
disk.

Second, the MBR does not contain any reference to logical

partitions. Because of this, BootMagic must be installed to a
primary partition.

Disk Structure with One

partition

The Master Boot Sector is the first sector.

The Volume Boot Sector is the first sector or sectors in the

partition.

The FAT comes directly after the boot sector. There are two
copies of the FAT to protect against one being corrupted.

The root directory comes after the FAT.

The general file storage area comes after the space set aside
for the root directory.

Master boot
sector
Volume boot
sector

FAT

FAT

Root
Directory
General File
Storage

Disk Structure with Multiple

partition
The Master Boot Sector is the first sector.

The Volume Boot Sector is the first sector or sectors in

the partition.

The FAT comes directly after the boot sector. There are
two copies of the FAT to protect against one being
corrupted.

The root directory comes after the FAT.

The general file storage area comes after the space set
aside for the root directory.

THANK YOU