volume boot record is the same as MBR?

[miros84]

Hello
If I have a HDD with 3 particions, I have 1 MBR at the begining of the HDD, and 3 VBR (volume boot record). One VBR for each partition in the begining of each partition. But what I dont understund is if first VBR in the first partition (512 bytes) are the same 512 bytes in MBR?

[Agent]

No they are different. I may have different wording, but the partition table is at Sector 0 of the drive, it points to the partitions and says how big the partitions are. From there the Boot sector of each partition holds key information about the partitions and where key partition structures are at inside the partition, etc. The Boot Sectors are different depending on the partition, Eg. NTFS, FAT32, etc.

[fzabkar]

The following site is an excellent resource on the subject:
http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/

[miros84]

Table partition is located only in MBR, right?
Or in each partition there is another table?

[fzabkar]

Table partition is located only in MBR, right?
Or in each partition there is another table?

If all you have are four primary partitions or less, then the partition table will be located in the MBR at sector 0.

However, if you have an extended partition, then its entry in the partition table will point to an EBR (Extended Boot Record) elsewhere on the drive. This EBR will have its own partition table that points to the first logical volume, and to an additional EBR if there are more logical volumes.

You can see the partition tables (MBR and EBR) and boot sectors with Microsoft's Sector Inspector:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt.