The A+ Certification & PC Repair Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security)

1.

A technician installs a 2GB hard drive and proceeds to run the FDISK utility. FDISK only shows a 540MB hard drive. What action did not take place?

1. FDISK will only recognize 540MB by default.

2. The version of FDISK was not updated.

3. The BIOS was never updated.

4. The technician should have run Defrag.

2.

What is the maximum number of devices, not including the SCSI controller card, that can be attached to a fast-wide SCSI-2 bus?

1. 1

2. 7

3. 10

4. 15

3.

Which numbers display the SCSI priorities for devices on a SCSI chain from lowest to highest?

1. 1–8

2. 7–1

3. 0–15

4. 2–14

4.

Your computer made a grinding noise and then the screen went blank. What is the most probable cause?

1. The Read/Write heads crashed onto the hard drive’s platter.

2. A virus caused your resolution to exceed itself.

3. Your computer went into Hibernation Mode.

4. You installed your hard drive cable backwards, resulting in a crash.

5.

You have noticed that your system is running slower over time and you also notice several bad sectors. What two utilities would you run to rectify this situation?

1. FDISK and FORMAT from the command prompt.

2. COMMAND.COM and DEFRAG.

3. Create 23 logical partitions and make one active.

4. ScanDisk with the “thorough” option and Defrag.

6.

You want to add a second IDE hard drive to your system. You only have one IDE controller on your motherboard. The controller is already connected to a hard drive and a CD-ROM. What would you do?

1. Install an IDE add-on card.

2. Use a hard drive on the network.

3. Unplug the CD-ROM and attach the second hard drive when you want to use it.

4. Connect the second hard drive to a floppy drive controller.

7.

You install a 51/4 floppy drive. When you power the computer on, the floppy drive light stays on. Where did you go wrong?

1. You plugged the floppy drive cable in backwards.

2. You have an incompatible slave drive configuration.

3. You dislodged the onboard video card.

4. You didn’t update the BIOS.

8.

You power your computer on and receive a “Bad or missing operating system” message. What is most likely the cause of this message?

1. Your memory is corrupt.

2. You have an incompatible slave drive configuration.

3. You have a missing or corrupt boot sector.

4. Your SCSI controller card has a priority of 15.

9.

A SCSI adapter card can be used with which available expansion slots? (Choose Three)

1. PCI

2. VL-Bus

3. EISA

4. USB

5. AGP

10.

A technician installs a brand new hard drive and attempts to format the drive. Unfortunately, the technician receives a message stating, “Invalid Media Type.” What should the technician do?

1. Purchase another brand new hard drive.

2. Schedule ScanDisk and reboot.

3. Run Defrag.

4. Run antivirus software immediately.

5. Use the FDISK utility.

11.

Which of the following hard drive settings are stored in CMOS?

1. RMA, HDD, LBA

2. Manufacturer, ship date, RMA

3. Cylinders, heads, and sectors

4. Jumper settings, HDD backup

5. HDD, LVD, and HVD

6. All of the above

12.

This serial standard is faster than parallel ATA. It is a hot-swappable, point-to-point standard that offers a maximum cable length of three feet. What is the standard being described?

1. USB-ATA

2. Fast/Wide-ATA

3. ESDI

4. S-ATA

5. Ultra-ATA

6. None of the above

13.

What type of a connector does Serial ATA use?

1. 26-pin

2. 40-pin

3. 7-pin

4. 15-pin

5. No pins

6. None of the above

14.

What do you need in order to run in Ultra ATA/100 mode?

1. An operating system that can handle DMA transfers

2. An Ultra ATA-capable 40 pin, 80-conductor cable

3. An Ultra ATA/100-compatible device

4. An Ultra ATA/100-capable system board and BIOS

5. All of the above

6. None of the above

15.

Low Voltage Differential (LVD) is the new data transmission standard for SCSI devices. Which of the following choices describe LVD?

1. LVD uses 3.3 volts or 1.5 volts, which replaces the standard +5 volts.

2. LVD uses a dual wire system and filters noise more effectively.

3. LVD allows for the use of longer data cables.

4. LVD’s auto sensing feature is called multimode operation.

5. All of the above.

16.

What does Active Termination use to control the impedance of a data signal at both ends of an SCSI bus?

1. Voltage regulator

2. MSCDEX

3. Terminating resistor

4. 7-pin connector

5. A dongle

17.

What does Passive Termination use at the end of an SCSI bus to reduce reflection?

1. Voltage regulator

2. Voltmeter

3. Terminating resistor

4. Voltage resistor

5. Terminating regulator

18.

What was the original standard for SCSI interfaces called?

1. GOSCSI

2. SE

3. HVD

4. LVD

5. Differential

19.

Which RAID level provides the best level of fault tolerance and performance?

1. RAID 32

2. RAID 0

3. RAID

4. RAID 5

5. None of the above

1.

Correct Answer = C

When you’re installing a new hard drive, it is important to verify that your hard drive settings have been updated in the system BIOS settings. If your BIOS settings for your hard drive are set to AUTO (Auto Detect), the full capacity of your hard drive should be recognized.

2.

Correct Answer = D

A fast-wide SCSI-2 bus can support 15 devices not including the SCSI controller card. SCSI-1 can support seven devices.

3.

Correct Answer = C

On a SCSI-1 chain, the controller with the unique SCSI ID of 7 has the highest priority. The priority decreases until you move down the SCSI chain to device 0. The same is true for the more popular SCSI 2 chain, which allows for 16 devices numbered 0–15. Device 15 would have the highest priority on the chain; device 0 would have the lowest priority.

4.

Correct Answer = A

If you hear a grinding noise coming from inside your computer, your Read/Write heads may be “crashing” onto the hard drive’s platter. This will most likely result in a hard drive failure.

5.

Correct Answer = D

If you are developing bad sectors on your hard drive, it is a good idea to run ScanDisk and select the “thorough” option in the ScanDisk settings options. Running a defragmenter utility will place the files stored on your hard drive in contiguous order, resulting in better file access performance.

6.

Correct Answer = A

If your motherboard does not have an IDE/ATA interface, or your system only has one IDE controller, you can purchase an IDE add-on expansion card, such as a PCI card that supports this technology. This will allow you to have up to four devices.

7.

Correct Answer = A

If you plug the floppy drive’s data cable in backwards, the led (light emitting diode) light on the front of the floppy drive unit will stay lit, and you will not be able to access the floppy drive.

8.

Correct Answer = C

If your boot sector becomes damaged or corrupt, you will most likely receive a “Bad or missing operating system” error message.

9.

Correct Answers = A, B, and C

A SCSI adapter card can be plugged into any available PCI, VESA local (VL-Bus), EISA, or ISA expansion slots.

10.

Correct Answer = E

If you are installing a new hard drive and receive an “Invalid Media Type” error message after booting the computer, you will need to use the FDISK utility to repartition the drive and set the active partition.

11.

Correct Answer = C

If the CMOS hard drive settings are set to auto-detect, the hard drive or drives should be detected for you. If not, you will have to manually set the drive’s geometry, including the number of cylinders, sectors, and heads in the CMOS settings.

12.

Correct Answer = D

The Serial ATA (S-ATA) specification is a serial link point-to-point disk-interface connection standard that was developed by the Serial ATA Working Group to overcome some of the limitations of ATA (parallel) specifications. Serial ATA is a point-to-point connection that uses a special S-ATA serial cable.

13.

Correct Answer = C

S-ATA uses a 7-pin connector that is much more compact than a traditional ATA connector.

14.

Correct Answer = E

In order for a system to run in Ultra ATA /100 mode, you need an Ultra ATA/100-capable system board and BIOS, an Ultra ATA-capable 40 pin, 80-conductor cable, an operating system that can handle DMA transfers. Windows 95 (OSR2), Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP are all capable of this. You also need an Ultra ATA/100-compatible device such as an ATA/100 hard drive.

15.

Correct Answer = E

Low-Voltage Differential uses 3.3 volts or 1.5 volts, which replaces the standard +5 volts used by HVD. LVD uses a dual wire system (uses two wires for each signal) and filters noise more effectively than HVD. Data signals can travel farther, allowing for the use of longer data cables. LVD’s auto sensing feature, called multimode operation, can distinguish whether your SCSI device is LVD compatible or single-ended.

16.

Correct Answer = A

Active termination uses what is called a voltage regulator to control the impedance at both ends of an SCSI bus. More stable than passive termination, active termination actually maintains a certain amount of impedance.

17.

Correct Answer = C

Passive termination uses what is called a terminating resistor at the end of an SCSI bus to reduce the amount of reflection.

18.

Correct Answer = B

The original SCSI standard for SCSI interfaces was named single ended (SE) SCSI. This specification for SCSI devices proved very susceptible to noise and did not offer long SCSI cable lengths.

19.

Correct Answer = D

RAID level 5 places parity information across all disks in an array. It provides the best combination of fault tolerance and performance of the popular RAID implementations.