Term of the Moment
cryptographic hash function
Definition: MBR
(1) (Multiple Bit Rate) See adaptive streaming.
(2) (Master Boot Record) The first sector of the primary storage partition in a BIOS-based computer. The MBR contains a small program and the partition table. When the program is executed, it determines which partition contains the active operating system and branches to the boot program in that partition's boot sector to load it. See boot sector.
From BIOS/MBR to UEFI/GPT
(2) (Master Boot Record) The first sector of the primary storage partition in a BIOS-based computer. The MBR contains a small program and the partition table. When the program is executed, it determines which partition contains the active operating system and branches to the boot program in that partition's boot sector to load it. See boot sector.
The PC's BIOS firmware and MBR partition table were superseded by the UEFI firmware and GUID partition table (GPT). The GPT allows unlimited partitions as large as 18 exabytes each (Windows supports up to 128 partitions). In addition, there is only one instance of the MBR partition table, whereas the GPT creates a copy at the end of the partition. See BIOS and UEFI.