The Hard Disk Management Interview Questions below are a part of Windows Server interview questions, which are written for IT and CompTIA A+ Individuals always working on different storage and disk configurations. The Disk Management questions and answers will provide you with knowledge on how to take your windows server interview based on disk management.
Disk management is always important when it comes to IT engineers, as you always need to have a perfectly configured drivers for every server, may it be a file server, AD server, Mail server etc. The information is stored on disks and when a disk is corrupted the admins would need to know what troubleshooting to perform in order to get back the server.
The questions are for individuals studying MCSE, Comptia A+, these questions will help them for there certifications and job interviews. Though this gives you oral knowledge you also need to practice them live.
Top 20 Questions and Answers for Hard Disk Management Interview:
1. What is Removable storage and Remote storage?
Removable storage is nothing but storing the data in our regular Tapes and other removable devices.
Remote storage is different. First we have loaded the Remote storage service (start >settings ->Control Panel-> Add/remove programs ->Add/remove windows components ->Select remote storage.By this we can migrate files from hard disk to removable media (Ex. Tapes). The pointer of the file exists on the hard disk but the file will be stored on the tape. This is very useful when you don’t want to store less accessible in hard disk, store them in the tape, when a user double clicks on the folder the contents of the folder will be displayed, the user doesn’t know the difference.
This will uses the space of tapes in tape library that are connected to the Windows 2000 system as storage as of our hard disk space.
Note: If all of your partitions are NTFS then you can’t load windows 95/98.If you want to load windows 95/98 you must format the partition that you want to load windows 95/98 by FAT, FAT32. If you load first 95/98 (this one should be FAT partition), then you can load Windows NT or Windows 2000.
But first if you have loaded win2000 or Windows NT first, then to load windows95/98 you have to follow the following procedure.
- First create a Primary partition, and then format it by FAT or FAT32.
- Then convert that partition as Active (System) partition.
- Insert the windows 95/98 CD.
- Restart the system
- Boot from CD ROM.
- Load the operating system as usual.
In Windows 95/98 if you want to change the active partition from one partition to another the command is disk.
From NTFS you can see FAT partitions, but from FAT you cannot see NTFS partition contents.
NTFS–>New Technology file system
2. What is the difference between the usage of the hard disk in Windows NT and Windows 2000?
In Windows NT we can only create Basic disks whereas in 2000 we can create Basic as well as dynamic disks.
3. What is Basic disk?
In Basic disk we can create up to 4 partitions. The partition may be either primary or extended. You can create up to 4 primary partitions but the maximum you can have one extended partition. In extended partition you can create up to 26 (the maximum no. of alphabets) logical drives.
When you have 4 primary partitions you don’t have any extended partition.
Windows 2000 by default creates Basic disk. If you want to convert basic to dynamic then go to computer management è Click on the disk management ->Right click on the hard disk (where you can find text as Basic disk) ->select upgrade to dynamic
4. What are the requirements to convert from Basic to Dynamic?
You should have at least 1 MB of free space in the basic disk to convert as dynamic because Dynamic disk reserves that 1 MB to store the configuration of hard disk.
5. What is a partition?
Partition is a chain cable space that we can format and stores files on that.
6. What is a Primary Partition?
Primary partition can start the operating system. When I create a primary partition it is immediately available for formatting. A primary partition can be marked as active but you cannot mark an extended partition as Active.
7. What is an extended partition?
When you create an extended partition you don’t have space immediately available to format and start storing files on that. In extended partition I can create the logical drives and format those drives for storing files. An extended partition cannot be marked as active, which means the operating systems cannot be booted from it.
8. What is Active Partition?
Active partition is the one from where the operating system can start. When we install an operating system the boot files will be written into the active partition.
Note: Only one partition can be marked as active at a time.
9. What is System Partition and what is Boot Partition?
The system partition is the one where boot files exist. The boot partition is the one where system files (winnt directory files) reside.
Note: You can store boot files and system files on the same partition.
10. What is a Dynamic Disk?
In dynamic disks we have volumes instead of partitions. Now there is no difference between primary and extended, all are simple volumes. You can create unlimited number of volumes
Once you have dynamic disks you can use the enhanced 2000 functionalities. Note: You convert from basic to dynamic at any time. But you cannot revert dynamic to basic when you have volumes, but you can revert from dynamic to basic when there is nothing on the disk.
11. When you convert a basic disk to dynamic disk what changes happen to different types of partitions?
Primary Partition->Simple volume
Extended Partition->
Logical drives->Simple volumes
Note: In Basic Disk, hard disk configuration (what partitions exist on this disk) is stored in the registry.
On Dynamic Disk, hard disk configuration (What volumes exist on this disk) is stored in Hard disk only (i.e. in 1 MB unallocated space)
Basic Disk->Partitions
Dynamic disks->volumes
Note: You can convert basic to dynamic disk you cannot convert dynamic to basic if any volume is existing in dynamic disks. If you want to convert dynamic to basic, delete all volumes then when you right click on dynamic disk you will get the option “Revert to basic” select that one.
12. How many different types of volumes can you create in Dynamic Disks?
- Simple
- Spanned
- Striped (called RAID 0)
- Mirrored (called RAID 1)
- RAID5 (called striped with parity)
Note: Windows 2000 professional doesn’t support Mirroring and RAID5. If you want to use them you should have a server operating system.
13. What is a Spanned Volume?
A spanned volume is the one by which you can combine more tuple area of free space either in one disk or in different disks to form a single logical drive. By this you can extend the size of a volume at any time. Space from 2 to 32 dynamic disks can be included. With spanned volumes we don’t have fault tolerance and performance improvement. If one disk on spanned volume fails, all data is lost.
14. What is Striped Volume?
With the striped volume is possible when you have 2 more disks. With the striped volume we have performance improvement (because it writes half of the data into one disk and another half into another disk, when it comes reading it reads from two disks) but we don’t have fault tolerance (because if we lose one disk, we will lose entire data).
Data is written as 64 KB blocks simultaneously on each disk in the striped set which increases disk drive read and writes access speed.
Note: I think we can stripe 2 to 32 disks.
15. What is Mirrored Volume?
With mirrored volumes we have fault tolerance and performance improvements. But it is a expensive solution. When you are storing data it writes into one disk and copies into another disk. When it comes to reading it reads from two disks. So we have performance improvement. When you lose one disk, you have another disk as a backup copy. So we have fault tolerance.
Note: When you are creating mirror disks it takes the space on each disk as LCM.
For mirroring you should need 2 disks.
In mirrored volumes the total amount of space available to use is 50% of mirrored space.
16. What is RAID 5?
RAID 5 stripes with parity. With this we have fault tolerance and performance improvement and it is a cheap solution.
You should have least 3 disks and you can add up to 32 disks.
The total amount of available space for use is the total number of disks minus one disk.
You can mount volumes in basic disks as well as in dynamic disks in windows 2000. You cannot mount a volume in Windows NT and previous versions of Windows.
When you are mounting a volume to a folder the folder should be empty.
17. What are Software RAID and Hardware RAID?
Software RAID is controlled by the operating system where as hardware RAID is controlled by a hardware adapter.
18. How to get a Failed Disk in Disk Mirroring or in RAID5?
- Shut down the computer
- Remove the disk which has failed
- Insert a new disk
- Start the computer
- Open computer management tool–>click on disk management
- Convert the new disk as dynamic
- Right click on the disk–>select repair volume
Note: If your computer supports hot swapping then you need not shut down the computer.
19. What is Hot Swapping?
Removing the existing hard disk and replacing the new hard disk when the computer is switched on. If the computer automatically detects the new hard disk then there is nothing to do, if it doesn’t detect new hard disk automatically, Right click on the disk then select the option Rescan the disk.
If you click on the Rescan the disk then it rescans the bus and checks any new disks are inserted.
20. What are the errors that you get when disks in the RAID are failing?
We get two types of errors:
- Failed Redundancy – You will get this error when only one disk in the set fails.
- Failed Volume – You will get this error when two or more disks fail.
