5.9.6 Practice Questions

Lately, you hear a clicking noise when reading or writing data from the hard disk. What is the MOST likely cause of the clicking?

Failing hard drive Explanation: A clicking noise when reading or writing data from the hard disk is an early sign of a failing drive. As a precaution, you should move data from the drive to a secure location as soon as possible. Bad memory would result in memory errors, not a clicking noise. An overheated CPU or bad power supply will cause a spontaneous reboot, not a clicking. A system notification would indicate whether there is a failed drive, as it would not allow reading or writing. A failed UPS (or failed battery in the UPS) would result in a complete loss of power to the computer if the outlet (or wall) power was lost.

Which of the following can you do to disable defragmentation in Windows?

Select Change Settings from the Optimize Drive dialog. Then clear the Run on a schedule option. Explanation: To disable defragmentation in Windows, you select Change Settings from the Optimize Drive dialog and then clear (deselect) the Run on a schedule option. There is no Defragment drives option when selecting the Optimize button. Selecting the Optimize button simply starts the optimization process. Device Manager does not provide any options for defragmenting an SSD or traditional hard drive.

After installing a new SSD drive on your Windows 11 system, you determine that the TRIM functionality has not been automatically enabled on the drive by the Windows operating system. You need to manually turn on TRIM from a Command Prompt. The drive's volume has been assigned a drive letter of E:. Which of the following commands MUST you use to enable this feature?

fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 Explanation: If it is disabled, you can manually enable TRIM on an SSD drive with the fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0 command. The fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify command detects whether TRIM is enabled, but doesn't actually turn it on. The fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify 0 E: command is an invalid command. The chkdsk e: /R command checks the E: drive for bad sectors and tries to recover readable data. The bootrec /rebuildbcd command rebuilds the boot configuration data.

You want to create a high-performance Windows laptop with both a 2-TB hard drive and a 1-TB SSD drive. Which of the following are data storage recommendations for your high performance system? (Select two.)

Store data that requires high performance on the SSD drive. Store heavily used information on the hard drive. Explanation: For your high-performance system, you should adhere to the following data storage recommendations: >Store heavily used information on the standard hard disk drive. >Store high-performance data on the SSD drive. As a final recommendation, you should automatically back up important data on the SSD drive to the hard drive.

You have just received a frantic call from a customer. She informs you that after turning her computer on, she received the following error: The SMART hard disk check has detected an imminent failure. Which of the following is the best FIRST step to take?

Back up all important data and files. Explanation: Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) is a monitoring system that detects drive errors. If SMART detects enough errors that a complete hard disk failure is imminent, a warning is displayed when the system boots. SMART is designed to warn you of disk failures before they actually happen. If you see a SMART error, you should immediately back up the data on the disk and then, to be safe, replace the drive. Running a hard drive test to verify the hard disk's condition is a good second step to verify that the SMART error is accurate. You could run chkdsk after backing up all important data and files, but it would probably not resolve the SMART warning. A defragmentation tool will not help you troubleshoot or fix disk errors. Its main purpose is to consolidate files to create disk space and improve computer disk reads.

While trying to start your Windows 11 system, you see the following error message: Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Which of the following will MOST likely fix the problem?

Boot into the recovery environment and run the bootrec /rebuildbcd command. Explanation: This error message is generated when the system cannot find the partition specified in the BCD database where the operating system files are located. For example, the database might be pointing to the C: drive for the operating system files, but that drive does not exist. To fix this problem, boot into the recovery environment and then run the bootrec /rebuildbcd command to rebuild the boot loader database with a list of valid operating system locations. You will not be able to boot into Safe Mode because the operating system files have not yet been loaded. NTLDR (NT loader) is the boot loader for all releases of the Windows NT operating system up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. NTLDR is not used in Windows 11.

You are currently running a video editing application on your Windows 11 laptop. The laptop includes both an SSD drive and a traditional hard drive. You run the video application on the hard drive, but you would like to install and run the app from the SSD drive to enhance performance speed. Which of the following should you do to protect the video application and associated data files from drive failure when you move them to the SSD drive?

Configure an automatic backup to the hard disk drive. Explanation: You should consider configuring an automatic data backup process (such as Windows Backup and Restore or File History) to the hard drive in order to protect the data stored on the SSD drive. TRIM functionality extends the life of the SSD drive by preventing the SSD drive from storing unnecessary data and being overused. TRIM is not designed to protect the data on an SSD drive. When working with SSD drives, you should not defragment them as you do standard hard disk drives. Running defragmentation utilities causes unnecessary write/erase operations to occur and can quickly reduce the drive's lifespan. While encrypting the data on an SSD drive can protect it from security breaches, it also increases the read/write access to the drive (decreasing the drive's lifespan). Also, this does not protect against an SSD drive failure.

You have just finished upgrading the 250-watt power supply in your desktop computer to a 450-watt power supply. Now the BIOS does not recognize one of the hard disk drives in the system during POST. Which of the following troubleshooting steps is the BEST to try first?

Make sure that the hard disk is connected to the power supply. Explanation: Because you have just made a system change, you should check items related to the change you have made. In this case, check to make sure that the power connectors are plugged in. Jumpers are switches on older hard drives that help you enable specific hard drive settings. If the settings worked before upgrading the power supply, they should continue to work. Replacing the power supply is one of the last troubleshooting steps you should perform. Switching to a higher voltage on the power supply is unlikely to resolve the issue. In older systems, you had to manually enter the hard disk geometry, and it was very common for a wrong value to be entered. In this scenario, even if you had to enter the hard disk geometry parameters initially, the hard drive was working prior to upgrading the power supply, and the parameters should still be correct.

Listen to exam instructions You have just installed an SSD drive in your older Windows workstation. However, after you start Windows, you do not see the SSD drive listed in Windows Explorer. What should you do FIRST?

Make sure the power connectors on the SSD drive are plugged in all the way. Explanation: Because you have just made a system change, you should check items related to the change you have made. In this case, check to make sure that the power connectors are plugged in to the SSD drive. Jumpers are pins on the back of some older hard drives and are used to enable specific types of settings. These do not apply to an SSD drive. Replacing the power supply is one of the last steps you should take, especially if the power supply is new and seems to be working. Using the voltage switch to go from 110 to 220 volts does not normally impact whether or not an SSD drive is working.

Your company's graphic designers were given laptop computers several months ago. The laptops have a 500-GB SSD drive for the operating system and applications and a 1-TB hard drive for storing media files. Now, a few of the graphic designers are complaining about slow performance on their SSD drives. What is the MOST likely cause of the slow performance?

The designers are storing media files on the SSD drive. Explanation: The most likely cause of the slow performance is that the graphic designers are storing all their media files on the SSD drive (instead of the hard drive) for faster access to the files. When an SSD is too full (90% or more), performance decreases significantly. It is likely that the SSD drives are at least 90% full. Because these are newer laptops, the file systems are most likely optimized for SSD, and the firmware probably does not need to be updated yet. Also, the SATA connection is newer, which means that the transfer speed is working properly.