Lab Manual for A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, 7th edition

Ch. 8

Solutions-1

Chapter 8 Solutions
Lab 8.1
1. Why might you want to test your drive with Sandra? Answer: You can compare its performance to similar drives. 2. Based on the drive ratings information you got from Sandra, does a drive perform better if it spins faster or slower? Answer: It performs better if it spins faster. 3. Based on the drive ratings information you got from Sandra, does a drive perform better if it reads data randomly or sequentially? Answer: It performs better if it reads data sequentially. 4. Why shouldnt you use the system when Sandra is testing a drive? Answer: Running the system can interfere with the test, resulting in inaccurate readings.

Lab 8.2
1. Name an advantage that Disk Management has over Diskpart. Answer: The partitioning can be done in Windows. 2. Name an advantage that Diskpart has over Disk Management. Answer: Diskpart doesnt require Windows to be installed. 3. What happens to all the information in a partition if you delete the partition? Answer: The information cannot be retrieved by conventional methods. 4. What feature opens if you choose Explore from a shortcut menu in Disk Management? Answer: Windows Explorer opens. 5. Is it possible to create two partitions, using different file systems, from one area of unallocated disk space? Explain. Answer: Yes. Create one partition with less than 100% usage of unallocated disk space using one file system. Then create another partition with all or part of the unallocated disk space with another file system.

Lab 8.3
1. Why might someone need a second hard drive? Answer: Answers may include additional storage space, separate backups, better performance than an external drive. 2. What is one way to determine how to set the jumper on a hard drive? Answer: Consult the drives documentation or examine the drive itself.

Lab Manual for A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, 7th edition

Ch. 8

Solutions-2 3. What can happen if the jumpers on both drives are not configured properly? Answer: The BIOS may not report the drive correctly or the computer may not boot at all. 4. Why do you think the drive label, the BIOS, and the operating system sometimes report slightly different sized for a hard drive? Answer: There is some ambiguity with the terms MB and GB. MB, for example, either means 1000000B, 1024000B(1000K), or 1048576B (1K1K). 5. List the steps used in installing a second hard drive: Answer: Answers will vary but should include: Physical installation (jumpers, data cable, power cables) BIOS Setup OS Setup (partitioning, formatting)

Lab 8.4
1. What are some symptoms of hard drive problems listed on the hard drive manufacturers Web sites? List three in order of seriousness. Possible answers: The system does not recognize the drive, the hard drive will not boot, data is corrupted, and software is missing. 2. Which hard drive manufacturers Web site was the most informative and easiest to use? Why? Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience. 3. Which utility from a hard drive manufacturer seemed to be the most powerful? Why? Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience. 4. What was the most common method used to run the utilities? Answer: Create a bootable disk and copy the utility to the disk. Boot from the floppy disk or CD and run the software. 5. Why is it useful to run the utility from a bootable CD or floppy disk rather than from Windows? Answer: You do not need to start Windows to use the utility. 6. What operating system is used on the bootable CD or floppy disk? Answer: A command line operating system such as DOS is used. 7. How do you determine that your system is set to boot from a CD or floppy disk ? Answer: Look in CMOS setup.

Lab 8.5
1. What was the first indication that the power was disconnected from your drive? Answer: The drive failed to initialize during POST.

Lab Manual for A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, 7th edition

Ch. 8

Solutions-3 2. In what incorrect drive configuration would you be able to access files on the hard drive by booting from the CD or floppy drive? Answer: You could access them by swapping jumper settings and switching data cables. 3. What incorrect configurations have similar symptoms? Answer: Swapping jumper settings, switching data cables, unplugging power, or disabling controllers have similar symptoms. 4. What problem resulted in no drives being detected except for the CD or floppy drive? Answer: Unplugging power or disabling controllers resulted in no drives being detected. 5. List the steps to use a drive whose partitions have been deleted. Answer: Run Fdisk, reboot, and format the drive.

Lab 8.6
1. Why do storage devices have to be copied into memory before their contents can be viewed in Debug? Answer: Debug examines only memory locations. 2. What Debug command dumps data at the beginning of the memory address space? Answer: D followed by the memory address 3. What command loads two sectors from the C drive, starting at the sixth sector? Answer: L0000:0000 2 5 1 4. Debug displays data _______ bytes at a time. Answer: 128 5. Why do you think it is important to be careful when tinkering with the Debug utility? Answer: It can easily render a drive unreadable and actually alter data.

Lab 8.7
1. Now that you have been through this troubleshooting experience, what would you do differently the next time the same symptoms are exhibited? Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience. 2. What operating system utilities did you use or could you have used to solve the problem? Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience. 3. Is there any third-party software that might have been useful in solving this problem? Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience. 4. In a real-life situation, what might happen that would cause this problem to occur? List three things. Answer: This answer is dependent on students research and experience.

Lab Manual for A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, 7th edition

Ch. 8

Solutions-4