Understanding MBR
Once a POST finishes verifying that the server hardware is working correctly, BIOS then hands over control to the first boot device. This is because BIOS looks after the boot device that contains the MBR. The MBR is created when disk partitions are created; however, the MBR resides outside the disk partitions. More precisely, the MBR is located on the first disk sector. As we learned previously, the MBR contains either NT Loader (NTLDR), Boot Manager (BOOTMGR), or both, depending on the Windows OS installed on the server's disk. This then determines the progress of the programs that will be executed with the purpose of loading the OS into RAM as shown in the following table:
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NTLDR (Windows NT to Windows Server 2003) ... |
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