boot disk
<operating system> The magnetic disk (usually a hard disk) from which an
operating system kernel is loaded (or "bootstrapped"). This second phase in
system start-up is performed by a simple bootstrap loader program held in ROM,
possibly configured by data stored in some form of writable non-volatile
storage.
MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows can be configured (in the BIOS) to try to boot off
either floppy disk or hard disk, in either order. By default they first check
for the presence of a floppy disk in the drive at start-up and try to use that
as a boot disk if present. If no disk is in the drive they then try to boot off
the hard disk.
Some operating systems, notably SunOS and Solaris, can be configured to boot
from a network rather than from disk. Such a system can thus run as a diskless
workstation.
(1997-06-09)
Nearby terms:
Booster « boot « boot block « boot disk »
booting » BOOTP » bootstrap
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