Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!plains!harlow From: harlow@plains.UUCP (Jay B. Harlow) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer Subject: Re: Complete guide to MS-DOS file system Message-ID: <3538@plains.UUCP> Date: 22 Feb 90 19:26:53 GMT References: <8915@wpi.wpi.edu> Reply-To: harlow@plains.UUCP (Jay B. Harlow) Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo Lines: 26 In article <8915@wpi.wpi.edu> jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) writes: >I have one question about the boot sector though. One of the entries is >called "hidden sectors". Exactly where are these hidden sectors and what are >they used for? All hard disks seem to have exactly 1 track of hidden sectors >in each partition. >-- Hello (again).... If you read my earlier posting before i CANNED it, sorry i was wrong (confused). the Hidden sectors are the number of sectors on the hard disk before this BOOTABLE partition. (master boot partition & other partitions..), the entry for reserved sectors is used for a possible longer boot record, which i hope to use in a small Protected mode OS i am playing with... so there is normally one track of Hidden sectors before your DOS partition the mormal first partition on the Drive... only this doesn't hold for extended partitions.. :-(, the boot code itself primarily uses the hidden sectors to find where on the disk it is.... Jay -- Jay B. Harlow uunet!plains!harlow (UUCP) harlow@plains (Bitnet) Of course the above is personal opinion, And has no bearing on reality...