The System Deployment Image (SDI) file format is often used to allow the use of a virtual disk viafor mountingstartup or booting. Some versions of [[Microsoft Windows]] allow for "RAM [[booting]]", which is essentially the ability to load an SDI file into memory and then boot from it. The SDI file format also lends itself to network booting using the [[Preboot Execution Environment]] (PXE). Another usage is [[Hard disk drive|hard disk]] [[Disk image|imaging]].
The SDI file itself is partitioned into the following sections:
