TABLE OF CONTENTS In this chapter we will look at the startup process that most computers go through and how the fundamental operating systems get loaded and started. You will see that computers start with tiny steps that build on each other, getting larger until the entire system is loaded and running. Only then can you, the end user, issue commands that the computer interprets and understands.
One of the most popular analogies for how a computer starts up is the amnesia scenario. For a moment look around you at the things you use everyday: telephones, pencils, coffee cups, and so on. Now imagine that you closed your eyes and when you opened them you didn t recognize any of those things, and didn t know how they worked. That is what happens inside a computer when you press the reset or the power button.
At the most fundamental level, computers understand only two things: true and false. The process of getting the computer from being a completely blank state to a fully running operating system is one of the fundamental items that every investigator should understand.
After looking at how a Macintosh boots, we will look at some of the tools that are available for analyzing Macintosh systems using both the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.
The term boot, depending on whom you talk to, came either from the old phrase, Pulling one s self up by the bootstraps, or just from the word bootstrap, meaning the leather tabs you...
