Computer Booting process Explained

Computer Booting process Explained

What is Booting?

Booting is the initial set of operations that a computer performs when the electrical supply is turned on.

Booting Procedure

The initial booting procedure starts with the Power on Self test (POST). In this process, the computer starts by verifying all the peripheral devices (like Video card, CPU, RAM, Keyboard, Mouse and etc.,)by a series of tests and indicates the success or the failure with the beep sounds. These beep sounds will vary depending upon the motherboard manufacturer(Read the motherboard manual to understand the beep sounds of your system).

After the success of the POST operation the BIOS in the system loads. The BIOS configures to see the OS files as per the boot priority. If there is no OS installed then the BIOS tried to install the OS by searching the setup files by the assigned boot priority.

The BIOS typically looks to the CMOS chip to tell it where to find the OS, and in most PCs, the OS loads from the C drive on the hard drive even though the BIOS has the capability to load the OS from a floppy disk, CD or ZIP drive. The order of drives that the CMOS looks to in order to locate the OS is called the boot sequence

In order for a computer to successfully boot, its BIOS, operating system, and hardware components must all be working properly; failure of any one of these three elements will likely result in a failed boot sequence.

After the OS files found the OS files in the primary storage (HDD or SSD) goes to the RAM(because running the OS in RAM is much much faster than any storage device).

The OS basically takes over control of the boot process. The OS performs another inventory of the system’s memory and memory availability (which the BIOS already checked) and loads the device drivers that it needs to control the peripheral devices, such as a printer, scanner, optical drive, mouse, and keyboard.

Types of Booting?

1. Cold Booting

Cold booting is the process of turning ON the system for the first time (means not restarting the system just turning ON the system). For Example, You are switching ON the system after some time (this may be for a small duration of time like 15 min or 1hr or etc.,)

2. Warm Booting

Warm booting is the process of rebooting the system. This may be due to any software update or application update or even by using the reboot button (for force rebooting).

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