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Date:      Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:34:28 -0400
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org
Cc:        vijay singh <vijju_s@hotmail.com>
Subject:   Re: about freebsd boot1.S
Message-ID:  <200409301034.28349.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <BAY13-F17DcHqvhRgmX0000f316@hotmail.com>
References:  <BAY13-F17DcHqvhRgmX0000f316@hotmail.com>

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On Wednesday 29 September 2004 03:32 pm, vijay singh wrote:
> hello all, i am trying to understand the freebsd boot code. i saw that the
> 1st stage boot loader relocates itself from 7c00 to 700. why is this done?
> if the run time kernel were to switch to real-mode and transfer control to
> this location (0700) would the 1st stage boot program run again?
>
> for the output below, i used the BIOS debugger and read the 1st sector into
> 7c00, and unassebled the text.
>
> 0000:00007C1D   cld
> 0000:00007C1E   xor     cx, cx	/* cx = 0 */
> 0000:00007C20   mov     es, cx	/* es = 0 */
> 0000:00007C22   mov     ds, cx	/* ds = 0 */
> 0000:00007C24   mov     ss, cx	/* ss = 0 */
> 0000:00007C26   mov     sp, 7C00	/* set SP to current location */
> 0000:00007C29   mov     si, sp
> 0000:00007C2B   mov     di, 0700	/* DS:SI pair denotes the source string
> and ES:DI pair the destination string 0:7C00 -> 0:700 */
> 0000:00007C2E   inc     ch	/* ch = 1, cx = 100*/
> 0000:00007C30   repe		/* repeat the movsw instruction cx number of times */
> 0000:00007C31   movsw	/* moves 200h = 512 bytes from 7C00 to 700*/
>
> please cc me in your reply.

We copy ourselves down so that we can use 0x7c00 as a buffer to load sectors 
into off of the disk.

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org



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