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booting

File:Flow-diagram-computer-booting-sequences.svg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Also known as booting up, boot, boot process, booting a computer, computer boot, computer startup, startup process, computer start-up

thumb|A flow diagram of a computer booting

AI overview

Booting is the process a computer goes through to start up and load its operating system when you turn it on. It matters because without booting, your computer cannot function or be ready to use.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

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33 sections
Contents
  • History
  • Pre integrated-circuit-ROM examples
  • Early computers
  • First commercial computers
  • IBM System/360 and successors
  • Minicomputers
  • Early minicomputer boot loader examples
  • Booting the first microcomputers
  • Integrated circuit read-only memory era
  • Minicomputers
  • Microprocessors and microcomputers
  • Modern boot loaders<span class="anchor" id="Boot-loader"></span>
  • First-stage boot loaders
  • Second-stage boot loaders
  • First and second stages boot loaders
  • Embedded and multi-stage boot loaders
  • Network booting
  • IBM-compatible personal computers (PC)
  • Boot devices
  • Boot sequence
  • BIOS
  • UEFI
  • SoCs, embedded systems, microcontrollers, and FPGAs
  • Security
  • Measures
  • Bootloop
  • Detection of an erroneous state
  • Recovery from an erroneous state
  • Recovery policy
  • Examples
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References

thumb|A flow diagram of a computer booting

In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a physical button on the computer or by a software command, first described in the 1950s as the "bootstrap technique." After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its main memory, so some process must load software into memory before it can be executed. This may be done by hardware or firmware in the CPU, or by a separate processor in the computer system. On some systems, a power-on reset (POR) does not initiate booting, and the operator must initiate booting after POR completes. IBM uses the term Initial Program Load (IPL) on some product lines.

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