I like the following structure at the end of the assembler boot block code: times (0x1B4 - ($-$$)) nop disk_identifier: times 10 db 0 partition_entry_1: time

I like the following structure at the end of the assembler boot block code: times (0x1B4 - ($-$$)) nop disk_identifier: times 10 db 0 partition_entry_1: times 16 db 0 partition_entry_2: times 16 db 0 partition_entry_3: times 16 db 0 partition_entry_4: times 16 db 0 dw 0xAA55 That's elegant, because it shows where/how the disk identifier and the 4 classic MBR partitions coexist inside of the same first 512 bytes in the boot block, with the boot code... (it is assumed that AFTER the boot block is copied to disk that the partitions will be set by an outside program (i.e., fdisk or similar program) to appropriate values... otherwise MBR partitions would be set to 0 from copying the boot block -- but that's a minor sub-point... it's elegant code -- I've seen a lot of boot block code, and I've never seen that construct before!)