BOOTING

See the mystery ,beneath it.

Presented by -- Priyabrat kumar

bishwal
0701227193
 What is BIOS ?
These are the specialized built routines that tells
which internal and peripheral devices are attatched
to the computer so that it can look for the input
and output device drivers it needs to perform I/O
tasks.
Functions of BIOS
Boots the computer.
 Verifies the information provided to it about
which internal and peripheral devices are
supposed to be connected to the computer.
Serves as the interface between the hardware
and the software (os, drivers , and applications).
 BIOS CHIPS
ROM
PROM(programmable read only memory)
EPROM(Erasable PROM)
EEPROM(Electronically Erasable PROM)
CMOS – Which is also known as NVRAM, is used to
store system configuration data.
-It stores the system setup as well as any changes
made to the system concerning its hard drive
parameters, peripheral setting etc.
 MEMORY ORGANIZATION – DOS AS CASE
STUDY

Extended memory

64 k high memory

FFFFF
384 Upper memory
A0000
640 k conventional
memory
00000
 BIOS MANUFACTURERS
Three of the larger BIOS manufacturers are
 Award
 AMI(American Megatrends Inc.)
 Phoenix
Now a days more than 80 % of the motherboards on
the markets are intel motherboard with phoenix
BIOS.
 BIOS ACTIVITIES
The entire phase from power on to the command
prompt or desktop has been in general terms referred
as Booting Process.
SYSTEM BOOT SEQUENCE
1. When we switch on the power to the machine , the
internal power supply (SMPS) turns on and
initializes. The SMPS takes sometimes (0.1s -0.5s) until
it generate stable and sufficient power supply for the
rest of the computer. If it turns on prematurely , it
could lead to damage. The SMPS sends
POWER_GOOD (+5V)signal to microprocessor.
 THE POST PROCESS

After the BIOS is loaded to memory , it immediately begins the

POST ,which performs a check to see all the system components
and hardware listed in system setup data are present and
functioning properly. The principal duties are:
1.verify the integrity of BIOS code itself
2.find ,size and verify system main memory.
3.discover ,initialize and catalog all system buses and devices.
4.Pass control to other BIOSes (if required)
5.identify organize and select which devices are available for
booting.
2.Upon receiving this signal , the processor is suffering from amnesia ; there is
nothing at all in the memory to execute. So, the processors makers have
pre-programmed the processor to always look at the same place in the system
BIOS ROM for the start of the BIOS boot program.

3. Once the BIOS gets the control , it performs the power on self test
( POST) . If there are fatal errors during the POST, the boot process stops
either with a series of beeps or displays error messages.

4. As part of the POST, the BIOS 1st looks for the video card. It looks for the
video card’s built in BIOS program .

5. Next, the BIOS looks for the ROM’s of other devices to see if any of them
have BIOSes.
6. The BIOS displays its startup screen. At this stage, the memory count-up
test is done which displays the byte count which ends with the total count of
bytes present in the RAM of the machine.

7. Subsequent to this , the mass storage controllers (hard disks or CDROMs) are
checked where it displays the messages like :
IDE Primary Master- SAMSUNG 14305 detected
IDE Primary Slave -NONE

8. Followed by the detection of the Floppy disk controllers (A & B).subsequent

to that any plug n play devices if present will be configured.

9. This ends with display of the consolidated BIOS system report which is
displayed for a small duration.
10. The BIOS now begins the search for a drive where it will boot from. Most
modern BIOSes also can have pre-defined settings that decide if the system
should first try to boot from the floppy disk (A:) or the hard disk (C:) or CD-
ROM drives or LAN, depending on boot sequence BIOS setting.
11. Once the target boot drive is identified, the BIOS looks for boot
information to start the operating system boot process. In a hard disk, it
looks for a master boot record(MBR) at cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1 (first or
boot sector); if it is searching a floppy disk , it looks at the same address on
the floppy disk for a volume boot sector .

12.This MBR will specify where the OS loader file or Bootstrap loader is located
and subsequent to that the BIOS will load the contents of the entire BOOT
sector into the RAM, this will result in the execution of the OS loader file,
which is the first file of the OS into RAM. Examples of such OS Loader
files are IO.SYS for DOS , windows 95/98 , grub in case of linux.

13. IF the BIOS is not able to locate the MBR in the targeted BOOT DRIVE, it
will look for it in the next boot drive and continue till all the drive options
get exhausted. At the end , it will give an error message regarding absence of
bootable OS and will halt the system.
 conclusion
This is the complete BOOTING procedure of a machine .
If we analyze further , the IO.SYS contains the
interference between MS-DOS and I/O subsystems . This
allows the OS to communicate with the basic peripherals
and perform input and output tasks . The MSDOS.SYS is
the kernel of the OS . It interacts with the hardware and
helps process the various DOS functions.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Let’s See how Cimple C is by –SUSANT

K. ROUT , tata mc.graw hill companies
2. Chapter 4 –Bios and boot operations
Black Book.
3. Wikepedia.com
Thank uuu
Any queries???