Up until the late 1990s, the Basic Input/Output System, or BIOS, was the way all Intel-based systems were booted. Its disk partitioning information was held in a Master Boot Record (MBR) with additional code in the first sector of each bootable partition. With the advent of the Microsoft-sponsored Secure Boot feature, and its associated boot mechanism known as the Universal Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), there is a new partitioning layout and additional considerations.
