boot disk

1 definition found

boot disk - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  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)