I'm planning on taking my A+ Core exam in a few weeks. In one of the study guide books I read, it stated:

"All CPUs boot in real mode until 32-bit instructions switches them to protected mode. (This may be one of the reasons why 2000/XP always require a FAT32 partition at the start of the command line setup process, even if you choose NTFS during the installation."

Objective: Know how to boot into 16-bit real mode.

I've never heard of this 'real mode' before... is it just saying that I should know how to boot into Safe Mode? Or is it something entirely different??

For all practical purposes today Real Mode is booting to DOS.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cpu/arch/int/modesReal-c.html

http://www.deinmeister.de/x86modes.htm

Shelly

Thanks Shelly. I am determined more than ever to get this darn A+ cert over and done with. I've been talkin about doing this for long enough.

Ditto.
I just have a hard time self studying for something when I know most of the material and find the books to be a very dry source of review.

The hard part for me has been filtering out the stuff I already know and boning up on the subjects that I'm weak on like the different network topologies and cable speeds.

I went to Google and searched for Real Mode and got quite a few links relating to DOS.

"This may be one of the reasons why 2000/XP always require a FAT32 partition at the start of the command line setup process, even if you choose NTFS during the installation."


My thoughts on that:

"How important is Windows XP SP2?"
http://www.pcqanda.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=2&topic_id=316189#316364