MBR and bootloader

[nouveau_riche]

From what wikipedia says about MBR, i could infer that MBR should not be the part of operating system, and must run independently. But if that is the case, how does the MBR maintains its partition tables, and sense if the partition is active, and how the bootloader makes to the MBR in the first place?

explanation with an example (like ntldr in win) would be appreciated !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The OS adds flags into the MBR stating which partition to boot from, basically.

 

[Hawkeye22]

MBR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

Boot loader:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_startup_process

The boot.ini file and Boot configuation Data (BCD) also come into play depending on the Windows OS version.