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From: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DOS Structure on Hard Disk - A Question
Keywords: DOS, boot record, FAT, confusion, cold fusion
Message-ID: <6038@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 3 Sep 89 01:22:29 GMT
References: <1626@cod.NOSC.MIL> <180@bmers58.UUCP> <14039@netnews.upenn.edu>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 17

In article <14039@netnews.upenn.edu> silver@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Andy Silverman) writes:
}This is slightly inaccurate.  There is a partition table located on EVERY
}hard disk, whether there is only one partition or not.  If there is only
}one partition then there will be only one entry in it, but it will be there
}all the same. Otherwise how would the controller figure out whether the first
}sector of the drive was a table or a boot sector?  (The table is not made up
}of executable code.)

No, the partition table *follows* executable code, whose job it is to 
determine which partition to boot from, and to load and execute that 
partition's boot sector.  The partition table is at offset 1BEh of the master
boot record.
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