what is a bootable disc?

Answer:

A little bit more of a scientific answer.



As you are probably aware, there are tons different file extensions......exe, .bat, .wav and so on.



Well, a bootable disk have an .iso extension, and this simply means that when you insert it into your computer, it will boot up itself, you dont inevitability to tell it to start, it will start to nouns whatever is on the disk.



As mentioned above, this is normally used for installtion of the operating system. Coz, when installing that from scratch you havent get windows on at that point and so cant shift into my computer or explorer to view the files, the disk have to be able to start from BIOS itself. Therefore, it is bootable.
A disc that your computer can start up or boot from. An example of this would be a Windows XP cd. Which will boot your computer up to a window setup to reinstall your operating system. Another example would be a bootable floppy. If you stick this in and restart your system, it will boot to a DOS prompt. Helpful for diagnosis of computer issues.