When we turn on a computer, the first code that runs is from the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), a program embedded in the CPU. It performs a power-on self-test (POST) that makes sure connected hardware are working properly. The BIOS loads the master boot record (MBR) to memory and then passes code execution. The master boot record (MBR) was read from the first disk sector of the designated boot disk. The MBR contains the bootstrap loader which is responsible for loading an operating system.
If, for example, we want to debug a given MBR image, we can do that with an emulator called Bochs. Bochs can be downloaded from http://bochs.sourceforge.net/.
To test this out, we have provided a disk image that can be ...
