diff --git a/boot.asm b/boot.asm
index 97effa4..8eef962 100644
--- a/boot.asm
+++ b/boot.asm
@@ -2,16 +2,11 @@
 ; these are only used during booting, they are not exposed via the jump table
 
 ; read disk 0 and attempt to figure out what type of disk it is, and load the correct binary into memory
-; currently this only supports booting raw binaries
 ; inputs:
 ; r0: disk size (bytes)
 ; outputs:
 ; none (doesn't return)
 start_boot_process:
-    ; in the future, this will check the header for various different types of disk types
-    ; but for now, just assume the user inserted a raw binary
-    ; load it to 0x00000800 (immediately after the interrupt vectors) and jump
-
     ; r0 contains the size of the disk in bytes
     ; divide the size by 512 and add 1 to get the size in sectors
     div r0, 512
@@ -20,22 +15,26 @@ start_boot_process:
     mov r31, r0
     mov r0, 0          ; sector counter
     mov r2, 0x00000800 ; destination pointer
-    mov r3, 0x80003000 ; command to read a sector from disk 0 into the sector buffer
-    mov r4, 0x80002000 ; command to read a byte from the sector buffer
-start_boot_process_sector_loop:
-    out r3, r0         ; read the current sector into the sector buffer
-    mov r1, 0          ; byte counter
-start_boot_process_byte_loop:
-    mov r5, r4
-    or r5, r1          ; or the byte read command with the current byte counter
-    in r5, r5          ; read the current byte into r5
-    mov.8 [r2], r5     ; write the byte
-    inc r2             ; increment the destination pointer
-    inc r1             ; increment the byte counter
-    cmp r1, 512
-    ifnz jmp start_boot_process_byte_loop
-    loop start_boot_process_sector_loop
+    mov r3, 0x80003000 ; command to read a sector from disk 0 into memory
+    mov r4, 0x80002000 ; command to set the location of the buffer
 
+    ; first, check to see if this is a FAT-formatted disk
+    out r4, r2         ; set the memory buffer location
+    out r3, 0          ; read sector 0 into the buffer
+    cmp.8 [r2], 0xEB   ; check for an x86 jmp instruction, indicating a possible FAT volume
+    ifz jmp start_boot_process_fat
+    cmp.8 [r2], 0xE9   ; check for an x86 jmp instruction, indicating a possible FAT volume
+    ifz jmp start_boot_process_fat
+start_boot_process_raw_binary_sector_loop:
+    out r4, r2         ; set the memory buffer location
+    out r3, r0         ; read the current sector into memory
+    inc r0             ; increment sector counter
+    add r2, 512        ; increment the destination pointer
+    loop start_boot_process_raw_binary_sector_loop
+    jmp start_boot_process_done
+start_boot_process_fat:
+    ;
+start_boot_process_done:
     ; done loading !!!
     ; now clean up and jump to the loaded binary
     call boot_cleanup