The MBR is easily identified on a Windows XP system by:

Question

Options

• AIt's records in the MFT
• BIt begins at offset 0000
• CIt is labeled in binary 0A0A0A08
• DIs it not located in the system, but in the CMOS of the host machine

• A
  3% (2)
• B
  80% (49)
• C
  11% (7)
• D
  5% (3)

Explanation

Option B is correct because the MBR (Master Boot Record) always resides at the very first sector of a storage device - cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1 - which corresponds to offset 0x0000 (byte offset 0), making its location absolute and consistent across all PC-compatible systems including Windows XP. Option A is wrong because the MFT (Master File Table) is an NTFS structure that tracks files and directories, not the MBR's location - these are separate disk structures. Option C is fabricated; 0A0A0A08 is not a real MBR signature (the actual magic bytes are 55 AA at the end of the 512-byte sector, not a label at the beginning). Option D is wrong because the MBR lives on the hard disk, not in CMOS - CMOS stores BIOS settings like boot order, but the actual boot code and partition table are on the disk itself.

Memory tip: Think "MBR = Most Basic Record = starts at the very Beginning = offset 0." Zero offset, zero ambiguity.

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