1. A method comprising: maintaining a list of boot data used for booting a computer system, wherein at least a portion of said boot data is compressed by a data compression engine to provide said at least a portion of said boot data in compressed form, and stored in compressed form on a boot device; initializing a central processing unit of said computer system; preloading said at least a portion of said boot data in compressed form from said boot device to a memory; accessing and decompressing said at least a portion of said boot data in said compressed form from said memory; and utilizing said decompressed at least a portion of said boot data to boot said computer system, wherein said at least a portion of said boot data is decompressed by said data compression engine.