Defining Terms: Power Cycle, Boot, Reboot, Restart, Reset, and Hard Reset

These are terms dealing with turning on hardware or software applications. They are often used interchangably, and sometimes used incorrectly. In their loosest senses, they mean "Turn something on" or "Turn something off, then turn it on, again."

Often the purpose of these actions is to correct a temporary fault, to set parameters back to defaults, or to upgrade to new functionality.

Power Cycle or Cycling the Power — Turning the power off, and turning it back on again. If there is a power switch, this is the preferred way to power cycle, however for some NETGEAR devices the power cord is simply taken out and then put back in again. Because some devices carry an electric charge for a few seconds after having their power taken away, with the possible result of not really being power cycled, it's common to leave a device unpowered a few seconds before starting it again — anyway, it never hurts to wait a little.

Most NETGEAR devices that are powered off are not functioning at all. However, other devices, such as many computers, are not powered off until their plug is removed from the wall. Be careful not to physically modify the insides of a computer that is still plugged in — even if the power switch is off.

Reset — Setting hardware or software back to its default settings, erasing changes you made. Sometimes, however reset just implies erasing recent setting changes, so understand clearly which will happen before doing a reset.

On many NETGEAR products a reset is done by pressing a small recessed button on the back of the device. Read your product manuals before doing this kind of reset, because after a reset, you may have to reenter information you previously entered.

Hard Reset — In systems with more than one kind of reset — a "hard reset" and a "soft reset" — a hard reset is the most extreme. The intention of a hard reset is to put as many settings as possible back to their original, normal state. Sometimes hard reset and reset are used interchangably.

Boot implies that hardware is taken from a non-functional state to an operational one — at least to the extent of being able to accept simple commands. Often boot is used casually to mean "start a device", though. Boot and reboot mean almost the same.

Restart and start mean almost the same. Unlike a reset which changes something, a restart means to turn something on, possibly without changing settings. When upgrading firmware or software you are often asked to restart. A restart would be probably be used if there were a major change to functionality, while a reset often just changes settings of existing functionality. Start up is used to describe something during a restart, for example a first screen that you see might be referred to as a Start up screen.

Execute and run mean to start software.

Terms are often used consistently through equipment instructions. So if a manual says power cycle in one place, hard reset in another, and reboot in yet another, there's a good chance these are three different processes, and it would be worthwhile to study the differences.

Doc: N101434.asp Jan. 20, 2005