The Technology Behind Restarting Computers
Shutting down and restarting computers is the most common application of any computer. Understanding the process of shutting down computers is pretty simple. Each one of us are habituated with this process in our home theatre systems, television sets etc. The process of restarting a computer is one which needs some thinking.
How does it manage to shut down all its running applications before getting shut down, then disconnecting the motherboard and the most curious part is that how does it manage to restart all its applications again all by itself.
It might be sounding like a maze, but the answer is not that confusing. Whenever we click the Restart command or press the restart button, the O.S shuts down all running and active programs. This is done in order to make its RAM free.
After regaining all the resources of the RAM, the OS issues a message command to its CPU in order to make the BIOS to take over and control over the booting process. BIOS load the first five hundred and twelve bytes of the detected device and then jumps to the boot loader before restarting the machine.
It is a misconception that shut down is a safer process, but the above explanation shows that the process of restarting is much simpler and safer.