Booting

In computing, booting (also known as "booting up") is a bootstrapping process that starts operating

systems when the user turns on acomputer system. A boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the
computer performs when power is switched on. The bootloadertypically loads the main operating system for
the computer.

Contents

1 History

2 Boot loader

o 2.1 Common primary boot loaders

o 2.2 Second-stage boot loader

o 2.3 Network booting

3 Boot devices (IBM PC)

4 Boot sequence on standard PC (IBM-PC

compatible)

o 4.1 Power On Self Test (POST)

5 Other kinds of boot sequences

o 5.1 Initial Program Load

6 Rebooting

o 6.1 Hard reboot

o 6.2 Soft reboot

o 6.3 Random reboot

o 6.4 Rebooting automatically

o 6.5 Errors

7 Quick boot

8 See also

9 References

10 Further reading

History

The computer word boot is short for "bootstrap" (itself short for "bootstrap load"). The term bootstrap derives
from the idiom pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.[1] The term refers to the fact that a computer cannot run
without first loading software but must be running before any software can be loaded, which seems as
impossible as to "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps."[
In computers in the 1950s, pressing a bootstrap button caused a hardwired program to read a bootstrap
program from a punched card and then execute the loaded boot program, which loaded a larger system of
programs from punched cards into memory without further help from the human operator.[3][4] The term "boot"
has been used in this sense since at least 1958.[5]

The CDC 6600 (c. 1964) had a dead start panel with 144 toggle switches; the dead start switch entered 12
words from the toggle switches to the memory of peripheral processor (PP) 0 and initiated the load sequence.
PP 0 loaded the necessary code into its own memory and then initialized the other PP's.

The GE 645 (c. 1965) had a "BOOT" button.[6] It is possible that the contraction from "bootstrap" to "boot" was
motivated by an inclination to label the button with fewer, larger characters, or the contraction may follow the
familiar habit of contracting words to make them easier to say, and to create insider jargon.

Some machines, like the Atari ST microcomputer, were "instant-on" with the operating system executing from
a ROM. Retrieval of the OS from secondary or tertiary store was thus eliminated as one of the characteristic
operations for bootstrapping. To accommodate system customization for loading accessories and other support
software automatically, as part of the boot process, the Atari's floppy drive was read for the additional
components. There was a timeout delay, allowing time to manually insert a floppy, as the system searched for
the extra components, which could be avoided by inserting a blank disk.

The Multics operating system (c. 1967) had a boot command.[7][8] Multics documents also refer to "boot tapes,"
but it is hard to determine exactly when that term was first used.

In the Unix operating system, the earliest reference for "boot" is probably in The Unix Programmer's Manual,
first edition 1971.11.03.[9]

The bootstrap concept was used in the IBM 701 computer (1952–1956) which had a "load button" ["load"
button?] which initiated reading of the first 36-bit word from a punched card in a card reader, or from a
magnetic tape unit, or magnetic drum unit (predecessor of the magnetic hard disk drive). The left 18-bit half-
word was then executed as an instruction which read additional words into memory.[10]

Boot loader

A computer's central processor can only execute program code found in Read-Only Memory (ROM), Random
Access Memory (RAM) or an operator's console. Modern operating systems and application program code and
data are stored on nonvolatile data storage devices, such ashard disk drives, CD, DVD, flash memory
cards (like an SD card), USB flash drive, and floppy disk. When a computer is first powered on, it does not
have an operating system in ROM or RAM. The computer must initially execute a small program stored in ROM
along with the bare minimum of data needed to access the nonvolatile devices from which the operating
system programs and data are loaded into RAM.
The small program that starts this sequence of loading into RAM, is known as a bootstrap
loader, bootstrap or boot loader. This small boot loader program's only job is to load other data and programs
which are then executed from RAM. Often, multiple-stage boot loaders are used, during which several
programs of increasing complexity sequentially load one after the other in a process of chain loading.

Early computers (such as the IBM 650, DEC PDP-1 through PDP-8 and early models of the PDP-11) had a row
of dials or toggle switches on the front panel to allow the operator to manually enter the boot instructions into
memory before transferring control to the CPU, or to directly pass an instruction to the CPU. The boot loader
would then read in either the second-stage boot loader (called Binary Loader of paper tapewith checksum), or
the operating system from an outside storage medium such as paper tape, punched card, or a disk drive.

Pseudo-assembly code for the bootloader might be as simple as the following eight instructions:

1. Set the P register to 8

2. Check paper tape reader ready

3. If not ready, jump to 1

4. Read a byte from paper tape reader to accumulator

5. If end of tape, jump to 8

6. Store accumulator to address in P register

7. Increment the P register

8. Jump to 1

A related example is based on a loader for a 1970's Nicolet Instrument Corporation minicomputer. Note that the
bytes of the second-stage loader are read from paper tape in reverse order.

1. Set the P register to 106

2. Check paper tape reader ready

3. If not ready, jump to 1

4. Read a byte from paper tape reader to accumulator

5. Store accumulator to address in P register

6. Decrement the P register

7. Jump to 1

The length of the second stage loader is such that the final byte overwrites location 6. After the instruction in
location 5 executes, location 6 starts the second stage loader executing. The second stage loader then waits
for the much longer tape containing the operating system to be placed in the tape reader. The difference
between the boot loader and second stage loader is the addition of checking code to trap paper tape read
errors, a frequent occurrence with the hardware of the time, which in this case was an ASR-33 teletype.
Some computer systems, upon receiving a boot signal from a human operator or a peripheral device, may load
a very small number of fixed instructions into memory at a specific location, initialize at least one CPU, and
then point the CPU to the instructions and start their execution. These instructions typically start an input
operation from some peripheral device (which may be switch-selectable by the operator). Other systems may
send hardware commands directly to peripheral devices or I/O controllers that cause an extremely simple input
operation (such as "read sector zero of the system device into memory starting at location 1000") to be carried
out, effectively loading a small number of bootload instructions into memory; a completion signal from the I/O
device may then be used to start execution of the instructions by the CPU.

Smaller computers often use less flexible but more automatic bootload mechanisms to ensure that the
computer starts quickly and with a predetermined software configuration. In many desktop computers, for
example, the bootstrapping process begins with the CPU executing software contained in ROM (for example,
the BIOS of an IBM PC) at a predefined address (some CPUs, including the Intel x86 series are designed to
execute this software after reset without outside help). This software contains rudimentary functionality to
search for devices eligible to participate in booting, and load a small program from a special section (most
commonly the boot sector) of the most promising device.

Boot loaders may face peculiar constraints, especially in size; for instance, on the IBM PC and compatibles, the
first stage of boot loaders located on hard drives must fit into the first 446 bytes (or 440 bytes if Windows NT or
above has to be supported because NT put 6 byte disk-signature starting from offset 440) of the Master Boot
Record, in order to leave room for the 64-byte partition table and the 2-byte 0xAA55 'signature', which the BIOS
requires for a proper boot loader.

Some operating systems, most notably pre-1995 Macintosh systems from Apple, are so closely interwoven with
their hardware that it is impossible to natively boot an operating system other than the standard one. This is the
opposite extreme of the bootload using switches mentioned above; it is highly inflexible but relatively error-
proof and foolproof as long as all hardware is working normally. A common solution in such situations is to
design a bootloader that works as a program belonging to the standard OS that hijacks the system and loads
the alternative OS. This technique was used by Apple for its A/UX Unix implementation and copied by various
freeware operating systems andBeOS Personal Edition 5.

The Atari ST also had its operating system in ROM but, by inserting the Spectre GCR cartridge with the
Macintosh system ROM in the game slot and turning the Atari on, it could "natively boot" the Macintosh
operating system rather than Atari's own TOS system. The Atari SThardware was designed so the cartridge
slot could provide native program execution for gaming purposes as a holdover from Atari's legacy making
electronic games.

Common primary boot loaders

 BIOS

 EFI

 OpenBIOS

 OpenBoot

 SLOF
Second-stage boot loader
The small program is most often not itself an operating system, but only a second-stage boot loader, such
as GRUB, BOOTMGR, Syslinux,LILO or NTLDR. It will then be able to load the operating system properly, and
finally transfer execution to it. The operating system will initialize itself, and may load device drivers that are
needed for the normal operation of the OS. After that it starts loading normal system programs.

Many bootloaders (like GRUB, BOOTMGR, LILO, and NTLDR) can be configured to give the user multiple
booting choices. These choices can include different operating systems (for dual or multi-booting from different
partitions or drives), different versions of the same operating system (in case a new version has unexpected
problems), different operating system loading options (e.g., booting into a rescue or safe mode) or some
standalone program that can function without an operating system, such as memory testers (e.g., memtest86+)
or even games (seeList of PC Booter games).[11] Usually a default choice is preselected with a time delay
during which you can press a key to change the choice, after which the default choice is automatically run, so
normal booting can occur without interaction.

The boot process can be considered complete when the computer is ready to interact with the user, or the
operating system is capable of running system programs or application programs. Typical modern personal
computers boot in about one minute (of which about 15 seconds are taken by a power-on self test (POST) and
a preliminary boot loader, and the rest by loading the operating system and other software. Time spend after
the operating system loading can be considerably shortened by bringing the system with all cores at once, as
with coreboot[12] in as little as 3 seconds,[13] whereas large servers may take several minutes to boot and start
all their services.

Many embedded systems must boot immediately. For example, waiting a minute for a digital television or sat-
nav to start is generally unacceptable. Therefore such devices have software system in ROM or flash
memory so the device can begin functioning immediately. For these types of embedded system little or no
loading is necessary, since the loading can be precomputed and stored on the ROM when the device is made.

Large and complex systems may have boot procedures that proceed in multiple phases, each phase loading a
more complex version of itself, until finally the operating system and other software are loaded and ready to
execute. Because operating systems are designed as if they never start or stop, bootload processes
sometimes load the operating system, configure themselves as a mere process within that system, and then
irrevocably transfer control to the operating system. The bootload process then terminates normally as any
other process would, and the user need not have any awareness of the bootload.

Network booting
Main article:  Network booting

Most computers are also capable of booting over a computer network. In this scenario, the operating system is
stored on the disk of a server, and certain parts of it are transferred to the client using a simple protocol such as
the Trivial File Transfer Protocol. After these parts have been transferred, the operating system then takes over
control of the booting process.

Boot devices (IBM PC)

 see also: System partition and boot partition

The boot device is the device from which the operating system is loaded. A modern PC BIOS supports booting
from various devices, typically a local hard disk drive (or one of several partitions on such a disk), an optical
disc drive, a USB device (flash drive, hard disk drive, optical disc drive, etc.), a flash memory card such as an
SD card in a multi-media card slot, or a network interface card (using PXE). Older, less common bootable
devices include floppy disk drives, SCSI devices, Zip drives, and LS-120 drives.

Typically, the BIOS will allow the user to configure a boot order. If the boot order is set to "firstly, the DVD drive;
secondly, the hard disk drive", then the BIOS will try to boot from the DVD drive, and if this fails (e.g. because
there is no DVD in the drive), it will try to boot from the local hard drive.

For example, on a PC with Windows XP installed on the hard drive, the user could set the boot order to that
given above, and then insert aGNU/Linux Live CD in order to try out Linux without having to install an operating
system onto the hard drive. This is an example of dual booting - the user choosing which operating system to
start after the computer has performed its Power On Self Test. In this example of dual booting, the user
chooses by inserting or removing the CD from the computer, but it is more common to choose which operating
system to boot by selecting from a menu using the computer keyboard. (Typically F11 or ESC)

Boot sequence on standard PC (IBM-PC compatible)

Upon starting, a personal computer's x86 CPU runs the instruction located at the memory location CS:IP
F000:FFF0 of the BIOS, which is located at the 0xFFFF0 address. This memory location is close to the end of
the 1MB of system memory accessible in real mode. It typically contains a jump instruction that transfers
execution to the location of the BIOS start-up program. This program runs a power-on self test (POST) to check
and initialize required devices. The BIOS goes through a pre-configured list of non-volatile storage
devices ("boot device sequence") until it finds one that is bootable. A bootable device is defined as one that can
be read from, and the last two bytes of the first sector contain the word 0xAA55 (also known as the boot

signature).

A hex dump of FreeBSD's boot0 MBR

Once the BIOS has found a bootable device it loads the boot sector to hexadecimalSegment:Offset address
0000:7C00 or 07C0:0000 (maps to the same ultimate address) and transfers execution to the boot code. In the
case of a hard disk, this is referred to as themaster boot record (MBR) and is often not operating system
specific. The conventional MBR code checks the MBR's partition table for a partition set as bootable (the one
with active flag set).[14] If an active partition is found, the MBR code loads the boot sector code from that
partition and executes it. The boot sector is often operating-system-specific; however, in most operating
systems its main function is to load and execute the operating system kernel, which continues startup. If there
is no active partition, or the active partition's boot sector is invalid, the MBR may load a secondary boot loader
which will select a partition (often via user input) and load its boot sector, which usually loads the corresponding
operating system kernel.

Some systems (particularly newer Macintoshes) use Intel's proprietary EFI. Also coreboot allows a computer to
boot without having an over-complicated firmware/BIOS constantly running in system management mode. The
legacy 16-bit BIOS interfaces are required by certain x86 operating systems, such as Windows. However most
boot loaders have 16-bit support for these legacy BIOS systems.[15][16][17]

AwardBIOS during booting. BIOS is dated to 1997

Most PCs, if a BIOS chip is present, will show a screen detailing the BIOS chip manufacturer,copyright held by
the chip's manufacturer and the ID of the chip at startup. At the same time, it also shows the amount of
computer memory available and other pieces of information about the computer.

Power On Self Test (POST)

The computer power-on self-test tests the computer to make sure it meets the necessary system requirements
and that all hardware is working properly before starting the remainder of the boot process. If the computer
passes the POST, the computer may have a single beep (with some computer BIOS suppliers it may beep
twice) as the computer starts and the computer will continue to start normally.

Other kinds of boot sequences

Some other processors have other kinds of boot modes:

1) There are alternative techniques for booting CPUs and microcontrollers:

 Some modern CPUs and microcontrollers (for example, TI OMAP) or sometimes even DSPs may have
boot ROM with boot code integrated directly into their silicon, so such a processor could perform quite a
sophisticated boot sequence on its own and load boot programs from various sources like NAND flash, SD
or MMC card and so on. It is hard to hardwire all the required logic for handling such devices, so an
integrated boot ROM is used instead in such scenarios. Boot ROM usage enables more flexible boot
sequences than hardwired logic could provide. For example, the boot ROM could try to perform boot from
multiple boot sources. Also, a boot ROM is often able to load a boot loader or diagnostic program via serial
interfaces like UART, SPI, USB and so on. This feature is often used for system recovery purposes when
for some reasons usual boot software in non-volatile memory got erased. This technique could also be
used for initial non-volatile memory programming when there is clean non-volatile memory installed and
hence no software available in the system yet.

 It is also possible to take control of a system by using a hardware debug interface such as JTAG. Such
an interface may be used to write the boot loader program into bootable non-volatile memory (e.g. flash) by
instructing the processor core to perform the necessary actions to program non-volatile memory.
Alternatively, the debug interface may be used to upload some diagnostic or boot code into RAM, and then
to start the processor core and instruct it to execute the uploaded code. This allows, for example, the
recovery of embedded systems where no software remains on any supported boot device, and where the
processor does not have any integrated boot ROM. JTAG is a standard and popular interface; many CPUs,
microcontrollers and other devices are manufactured with JTAG interfaces (as of 2009).

 Some microcontrollers provide special hardware interfaces which can't be used to take arbitrary
control of a system or directly run code, but instead they allow the insertion of boot code into bootable non-
volatile memory (like flash memory) via simple protocols. Then at the manufacturing phase, such interfaces
 are used to inject boot code (and possibly other code) into non-volatile memory. After system reset, the
microcontroller begins to execute code programmed into its non-volatile memory, just like usual processors
are using ROMs for booting. Most notably this technique is used by Atmel AVR microcontrollers, and by
others as well. In many cases such interfaces are implemented by hardwired logic. In other cases such
interfaces could be created by software running in integrated on-chip boot ROM fromGPIO pins.

2) Most digital signal processors have the following boot modes:

 Serial mode boot

 Parallel mode boot, such as the host port interface (HPI boot)

It is worthwhile mentioning that in case of DSPs there is often a second microprocessor or microcontroller
present in the system design, and this is responsible for overall system behavior, interrupt handling, dealing
with external events, user interface, etc. while the DSP is dedicated to signal processing tasks only. In such
systems the DSP could be booted by another processor which is sometimes referred as the host
processor (giving name to a Host Port). Such a processor is also sometimes referred as the master, since it
usually boots first from its own memories and then controls overall system behavior, including booting of the
DSP, and then further controlling the DSP's behavior. An interesting thing here is that the DSP often lacks its
own boot memories and relies on the host processor to supply the required code instead. The most notable
systems with such a design are cell phones, modems, audio and video players, etc. where a DSP and a
CPU/microcontroller are co-existing.

Many FPGA chips load their configuration from an external serial EEPROM ("configuration ROM") on power-

up.

Initial Program Load

In IBM mainframe systems, the boot process is known as IPL (Initial Program Load). The term was coined by
IBM for the design of theSystem/360 and continues to be used in those environments today.[18] In systems that
share the System/360 heritage—and in some that have been inspired by it, including smaller systems such as
the IBM 1130—IPL is a hardware function, not a program run on the system itself. In its basic form, an IPL is
initiated by the computer operator by selecting the (three hexadecimal digit) device address using rotary
switches on the computer console, followed by pressing the 'IPL' button. This reads a tiny program (typically
24-bytes) entirely implemented in hardware, consisting merely of a few channel command words initiating a
read operation from the designated device. Usually this is a disk drive, but exactly the same procedure is also
used to boot from other devices, such as tape drives, or even card readers, in a device-independent manner,
allowing e.g. the installation of an operating system on a pristine computer from a magnetic distribution tape. Of
course, the disk, tape or card deck must contain a special program to load the actual operating system into
memory, a multi-stage procedure similar to most booting procedures (see elsewhere in this article).
The System/360 IPL function reads 24 bytes from an operator-specified or pre-configured device into memory
starting at location zero. The second and third groups of eight bytes are treated as Channel Command Words
(CCWs) to continue loading the startup program. When the I/O channel commands are complete, the first
group of eight bytes is then loaded into the Program Status Word (PSW) register and the startup program
begins execution at the designated location.[18]

A noteworthy variation of this is found on the Burroughs B1700 where there is neither a bootstrap ROM nor a
hardwired IPL operation. Instead, after the system is reset it reads and executes opcodes sequentially from a
tape drive mounted on the front panel; this sets up a boot loader in RAM which is then executed. However,
since this makes few assumptions about the system it can equally well be used to load diagnostic
(Maintenance Test Routine) tapes which display an intelligible code on the front panel even in cases of gross
CPU failure.

Rebooting
Hard reboot
A hard reboot (also known as a cold reboot, cold boot or cold start) is when power to a computer
is cycled (turned off and then on) or a special reset signal to the processor is triggered. This restarts the
computer without first performing any shut-down procedure. (With many operating systems, especially those
using disk caches, after a hard reboot the filesystem may be in an "unclean" state, and an automatic scan of
on-disk filesystem structures will be done before normal operation can begin.) It may be caused by power
failure, be done by accident, or be done deliberately as a last resort to forcibly retrieve the system from
instances of a system freeze, critical error or virus-inflicted DoS attack. It can also be used by intruders to
access cryptographic keys from RAM, in which case it is called a cold boot attack.[19] The attack relies on
the data remanence property of DRAM and SRAM to retrieve memory contents which remain readable in the
seconds to minutes after power has been removed.[19]

Soft reboot
A soft reboot (also known as a warm reboot) is restarting a computer under software control, without
removing power or (directly) triggering a reset line. It usually, though not always, refers to an
orderly shutdown and restarting of the machine.

The Control-Alt-Delete key combination on the original PC from Sphere 1 was designed to allow a soft reboot
reducing wear on the hardware. This kind of reboot will not usually reset the hard disks, so that they have time
to update their write cache to permanent storage. Hard disks will also keep their configuration
(like C/H/S adjustments, HPA, DCO, internal passwords...) over these reboots.
The Linux kernel has optional support for the kexec system call, which transfers execution to a new kernel and
skips hardware or firmware reboot. The entire process is done independent of the system firmware. Note that
the kernel being executed does not have to be a Linux kernel.

Random reboot
Random reboot is a non-technical term referring to an unintended (and often undesired) reboot for which the
cause is not immediately evident to the user. Such reboots may occur due to a multitude of software and
hardware problems, such as triple faults.

As Windows XP/Vista has an option to skip its Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) (Blue Screens of Death in
Windows XP/Vista offer no option of pressing any key and seeing if the computer continues functioning) and
immediately restarts the computer in the event of a fatal error, users can be mistaken in thinking a Windows
XP/Vista computer suffers from random rebooting.

Rebooting automatically
Systems may reboot automatically at a scheduled time, after a power failure, or kernel panic. The method by
which this is done varies depending whether the reboot can be handled in software, or must be handled at the
firmware or hardware level.

Errors
In Windows, when an error occurs in the boot process, a Blue Screen of Death or a Black Screen of Death may
occur. On Unix and Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux and Mac OS X, a fatal error in the boot process
may cause a kernel panic.

Quick boot

Several devices are available that enable the user to "quick-boot" to a usually Linux-powered OS for various
simple tasks such as Internet access (Splashtop, Latitude ON etc.).

What is the difference between a hard boot and a soft

boot?

A hard boot, or cold boot, involves turning on the power with the on/off switch, A soft boot,
or warm boot, involves using the operating system to reboot.