Typically you shouldn't need to download each type, but I was having issues when installing Catalina on my AMD system and wanted to try Full Install and Recovery Installations for Catalina and Mojave versions. If you download another version only the opposite type of the previous download, such as downloading the store version after you've finished downloading the full version, you'll get a warning that the download already exists. When completed, the OS will be in the gibMacOS folder under macOS downloads -> publicrelease.
We could say that the responsibility for the system to boot falls on this element, and for this its first task is to load the operating system into the RAM of the computer, essential for the processor to know what to do.When you start downloading the OS, the progress for each item is listed along with time remaining for larger downloads. Its duties?Īfter what has been explained so far, you will have already realized that bootloaders are a kind of intermediaries between the hardware and the PC’s operating system. This is used when the boot loader is too large to fit on track zero of the disk. In the second option, less used because it requires the user to have configured it this way on purpose for whatever reason (although it also looks like this on OEM PCs from manufacturers), the operating system uses a specific partition as a storage location for the bootloader that is created on the storage drive.Īs additional information, you should know that bootloaders can also be divided into several levels in a configuration called multistage and that it can cover up to three different levels, running one after the other.
The first option is the most common because it is closely related to the operating principle of the MBR, which not only contains the necessary reference for the firmware to find the bootloader but also contains the boot software itself, which is what which allows the operating system to “boot”. On a specific partition of the boot media.In the first block of the boot media (also known as “disk track zero”).The bootloader is usually found in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the hard disk or SSD, where the partition table of the storage medium is also stored, however this is not always the case and as a general rule we can find these two options: The bootloader is, as you will assume after reading this, essential and essential for the computer to function.
When a media with bootloader is found, it will load automatically, but if the list of devices configured in the BIOS ends and none have been found, the system will display an error message and will not boot. And, as you will already suppose, the bootloader is what is loaded right after the POST The system checks the boot sequence configured in the BIOS and begins to search in order for the first of the selected devices that has a bootloader to load the data into memory.
This initial process is called POST, which stands for Power on Self Test and although we have a specific article talking about it, in short it consists of a series of processes and system checks that are run on the PC every time it is turned on or restarted. The software responsible for processing this information is the aforementioned firmware (the BIOS / UEFI on a PC) found in the ROM memory of the motherboard. How a bootloader works on PCĪt the moment in which we press the power button of the PC, the first thing that appears on the screen is the data related to the equipment’s hardware, such as the processor, memory or connected storage devices. The boot medium receives the information about where the boot loader is located through the firmware of the computer, such as the BIOS, for example, and this is precisely the reason why in the BIOS we can configure the boot devices.īy selecting the boot sequence in the BIOS we are literally telling the PC where to look for the bootloader, since without it the computer is not able to boot and start the operating system. To do this, the bootloader must necessarily be used on a boot system, which may well be a CD / DVD, a pen drive or the system storage unit, which is common on a PC. The origin of this term comes from the fact that the boot manager is essential for starting the PC and, therefore, serves as a support in a similar way to how the loops of shoelaces do.Ī bootloader is a kind of special software that loads the essential files of the operating system you have into the RAM memory of your computer, and this is valid for Windows, Linux, Max and even DOS-based systems such as FreeDOS. As you can imagine because its name is quite self explanatory, the word bootloader comes from the English words boot and loader, although to be more specific it actually comes from bootstrap loader, which in English means literally boot lace loader (or loop).