Thread: Difference between a startup disk and a bootable disk?

What is the difference between a startup disk and a bootable disk?

these terms are frequently used synonymously, they contain two different meanings. To place it simply, a startup disk should be a bootable disk, but a bootable disk may not necessarily be a startup disk.

Once you start the PC, it boots up from the startup disk. This can be a hard disk, exact disk partition, CD, DVD, or even a USB flash drive. The startup disk is the default disk that the computer starts up from. In Mac OS X, the startup disk can be changed by opening System Preferences, clicking the "Startup Disk" option, and selecting a various startup disk. In Windows, you can change the startup disk by changing the "boot order" in your PC's BIOS. Depending on your Computer, you can access the BIOS by holding either F1 or F2 as your computer begins to start. Once the BIOS screen shows, you can change the boot order. for instance, you may select to start up first from the CD-ROM drive, after that from the hard drive if no CD is loaded.

So the startup disk is the disk you computer boots up from. This means it should be a bootable disk. A bootable disk has to be formatted in way your machine can understand .It should also have a readable OS installed, which gives the graphical interface once the computer starts up. This may be a full-blown OS, or a stripped down version with just sufficient resources to be functional.