Talk:Booting

Random Reboot

Does the Random Reboot section really belong in this article? All it says is "there are problems that may cause your computer to reboot unexpectedly". The given list of problems seems imprecise (what does "incompatible software" mean? The link to "incompatible" certainly offers no clues), arbitrary, and unsystematic (why is "improper memory timing" under "loose connections"? Why does CPU overheating need separate mention? Why does overheating link to an article on hyperthermia?). I don't think the section carries its own weight, or that it belongs here at all.

Space Radiation

Has a computer ever ever ever rebooted because of space radiation? Should this really be in the article?

How would one know? Did it affect the power distribution system, causing a voltage fluctuation which caused a reboot, or just the one machine? Perhaps a prayer might engender a clearer answer? // FrankB 16:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

LAN Boot

What is LAN Booting (something all computer bioses offer today)? How does it work? Thanks, --Abdull 21:33, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I believe it's the same as network booting. It works by having the computer store some code in non-volatile memory, say a ROM chip. The code then directs it to contact a server over the network, and obtain the system files required to boot-up from there. Dangerous Angel 20:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Now this article contains three meanings of the term "booting", so I propose to make this a disambiguation page and move the contents to new articles except for the meaning relating to the verb boot (disambiguation). But boot (disambiguation) contains a reference to this three meanings, so I don't know if we should copy that part here, or redirect this article to that one. I prefer the first option, copying those three points of boot (disambiguation) here (and updating them in both pages). But I don't have good names for the new articles --surueña 21:45, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

Minor Disambiguation

I am disambiguating the Power page, so I changed the link in this article so it points to Power (physics) instead of just Power. Gerry Ashton 22:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Question

How boot loader relate to MBR? Both have very similar duty. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.155.134.215 (talk • contribs) .

The MBR is the location on disk where the first-stage bootloader is located. As the MBR is very small, the code loaded into that location is generally used to load a second-stage bootloader from disk, which is then used to load the operating system. --Zetawoof 21:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Mergers

Booting VS. system partition

I think, you should not merge this two articles (if the articles really write about what they mean):

1. "System partition" mentions about W questions of low level format on hard disk and may be how it inter-acts with booting process while "booting" mentions about boarder points: it may includes hard drive, CDROM DVD, with differnt manner -- Except if you assume the ISO (or other standard) format on CD and DVD are the same as system partition does.
2. The process of booting really come even before it searches to boot devices to find the 1st boot loader or MBR in the storage device that boot process found 1st. So, system partition is really tied to either bootloader/MBR and relate to something else when the Start up process of OS is beginning (to read and assign volumes ,...). This mean it should be a part of a very-late stage of booting.

I agree, they should not be merged. --Freelancer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.225.53.175 (talk • contribs) Revision as of 12:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Strong Don't Merge— Bootloaders are NOT UNIQUE to windows machines in any way, nor are partitions and partitioned hard drives. Institutional based, e.g. University computers, frequently will have several available operating systems (BSD UNIX and other variants, VAX Kernals, etc.) available to systems maintenance personal, though not common users—and that doesn't begin to touch the many variants of business systems which exist in the humongous insurance and banking and finance communities, wherein network access is now the typical method of user interface, the core computers are still running proprietary operating systems.

In IBM PC class machines alone, powerusers will frequently have a boot manager as an intermediate stage (1) loaded by the Boot loader in BIOS via the MBR to select between operating systems like BSD UNIX, UNIX system V, SYSIX or Windows, and some of us even still prefer DOS for some tasks. After all, not all operating systems are equal for all tasks. Merging the two also totally discounts the most prevalent applications of all—the millions of computers for special purpose computing like XBOX, Nintendo, Digital Cable boxes et. al. and the even larger population of automobiles and appliances which boot only into firmware. FrankB 16:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Boot-up period with Booting

Merge nomination —(mergeto) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlankVerse (talk • contribs) 21:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge with redirect, including equivilent Bootup period and Bootstrap period. FrankB 17:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge with redirect.--SomeStranger (T | C) 14:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I've completed this merge. Warrens 16:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The FreeBSD Booting Process

Loading a kernel
Determine the root filesystem
Initialize user-land things
Interesting combinations