Bootcode and Booting Process
Partition tables
Partitioning is the address range where the volume with a file system can sit. You create a partition, then you format it to create a volume with a file system. So, partition and volume are not interchangable terms. Usually, a volume occupies the whole partition, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, some little address sapce might be left out of the volume, so that this volume would not occupy the whole partition.
There are currently three main partition tables: MBR, GPT and APM (Apple’s).
References
[1] InfoSec Institute Course, Coursera (all pictures are from the course or from the lab that I followed when watching the course). Definitely the one worth buying. Believe me.
[2] GPT, Wikipedia