Dell External OEMR 2850, User Manual

Page: 151 / 176

Glossary
151
BMC
Abbreviation for baseboard management controller, which is the controller
interface between the RAC and the managed system’s ESM.
boot routine
When you start your system, it clears all memory, initializes devices, and loads
the operating system. Unless the operating system fails to respond, you can reboot
(also called warm boot) your system by pressing
<Ctrl><Alt><Del>
;
otherwise, you must perform a cold boot by pressing the reset button or by turning
the system off and then back on.
bootable diskette
You can start your system from a diskette. To make a bootable diskette on a system
running Windows, insert a diskette in the diskette drive, type
sys a:
at the
command line prompt, and press
<Enter>
. Use this bootable diskette if your
system will not boot from the hard drive.
bus
An information pathway between the components of a system. Your system
contains an expansion bus that allows the microprocessor to communicate with
controllers for all the various peripheral devices connected to the system. Your
system also contains an address bus and a data bus for communications between
the microprocessor and RAM.
byte
Eight contiguous bits of information, the basic data unit used by your system.
cache
A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or instructions for quicker data
retrieval. For example, your system's BIOS may cache ROM code in faster RAM.
Or, a disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in which to store frequently accessed
information from your system's disk drives; when a program makes a request to a
disk drive for data that is in the cache, the disk-cache utility can retrieve the data
from RAM faster than from the disk drive.
CD-ROM
Abbreviation for compact disc read-only memory. CD drives use optical
technology to read data from CDs. CDs are read-only storage devices; you cannot
write new data to a CD with standard CD drives.