I'd like to disassemble the MBR (first 512 bytes) of a bootable x86 disk that I have. I have copied the MBR to a file using dd if=/dev/my-device of=mbr bs=512 count=1 Any suggestions for a Linux...

I'm need to find a method to programmatically determine which disk drive Windows is using to boot. In other words, I need a way from Windows to determine which drive the BIOS is using to boot the w...

my bootloader consists of two 512 byte stages. stage 1 gets loaded by the bios into the MBR area. stage1 then proceeds to load stage2 from the drive and jumps to it. i confirmed with a hex editor t...

I am currently writing a bootloader in x86 NASM assembly designed to load a kernel (R.BIN) from a FAT16 filesystem and jump to it. I have been writing the bootloader to a blank image that I have mo...

After tinkering with writing bootsector code in assembly, I'm wondering if I can do the same but in C. So far the code generation in an empty function looks as such: in C: void _start() { halt: ...

Is there a way to tell if a disk has a GPT or an MBR partition with powershell?

I am an electrical engineer who has recently discovered the need to modify the code in the MBR. Basically I need the ability to execute code on the HDD before, the OS starts up and takes over. I ...

I'm trying to understand how the vmware bios finds the MBR before it loads it. In physical Hard disks it's easy - the MBR sits at the first sector. But .. what happens in VM's? I created 2 VM's ...

I have a solution that uses spatial data to represent a cluster of points on a map. I have the need to used the coordinates that represent the extents of a cluster to find the minimum bounding rect...

I know that, on booting, BIOS loads the first sector (512 bytes) of a pre-defined device drive on memory 0x7c00 and then jump to that address. So, memory from 0x7c00 to 0x7dff is occupied. Is ther...

Curious about what explicit assembly instructions actually make up the Master Boot Record on an X86 architecture. Thanks for any insights. Other architectures welcome, but this is primarily for X8...

I've browsed through the CreateFile documentation... still wondering how should I use P/Invoke to call CreateFile and to read the boot sector, to display out the .MBR? Any reference code for this ...

I need to modify the MBR of Windows, and I would really like to do this from Windows. Here are my questions. I know that I can get a handle on a physical device with a call to CreateFile. Will the...