Partition question

When partitioning a HDD, why is there 7-8 MB unformatted space left over at the beginning of the drive?

I have used Part Magic 7.0 and get a 7.8 MB unformatted section while formatting in FAT32. We discussed this in school and some people have an 8 MB space left over depending on the O/S. Anyone have the definitive answer and possibly a link for this? I don't know the search parameters to use or I would do a google myself.

Thanks
Strype
 
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