Boot Sector

Example: "The computer could not start up from the hard disk because the boot sector was damaged."

A boot sector is the first section of a hard drive or other data storage media. It contains the master boot record (MBR) which is accessed by the computer during the boot sequence.

The boot sector may also include a partition map, which defines each disk partition.

First Published: 2009
Last Updated: July 8, 2009