RANGER GAMEZ

CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201) · chapter 12 of 15

Week 12: The file server is beeping

In this chapter Objectives 5.2

  1. Drive symptoms
  2. Practice questions
  3. Chapter recap

Objective 5.2

Drive symptoms

LED status indicators and audible alarms

Server drive bays and RAID controllers use LED status indicators: green/blinking = activity, amber/red = fault or predicted failure, blinking amber = rebuild or locate. The RAID controller or NAS may sound an audible alarm (continuous beeping) when an array is degraded. Silence the alarm, but treat it as urgent: the array may have lost its redundancy.

Exam tip Amber drive LED + beeping = degraded array. Identify the failed bay before pulling anything.

Grinding and clicking

Grinding noises from an HDD mean physical damage, like the head touching the platter or a failed bearing. Clicking sounds (the "click of death") usually mean the read/write head cannot find its track and keeps resetting. Both are mechanical failures: stop using the drive, back up whatever you can at once, and replace it. Badly needed data may require a recovery service.

Exam tip SSDs have no moving parts; a grinding or clicking noise points to an HDD (or a fan).

S.M.A.R.T. failure

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) tracks drive health: reallocated sectors, pending sectors, read errors, temperature, SSD wear. A S.M.A.R.T. failure warning at boot or in a tool means failure is predicted: back up now and replace the drive. Do not wait for it to die.

SMART status: BAD  (predicted failure)
ID  Attribute               Raw
05  Reallocated_Sector_Ct   1,872
C5  Current_Pending_Sector  214
C6  Offline_Uncorrectable   97
C2  Temperature_Celsius     41

Exam tip Rising reallocated/pending sectors = the drive is dying.

Bootable device not found

Bootable device not found (or "no boot device", "operating system not found"): check simple things first: a USB stick or disc left in that boots first, boot order in UEFI, UEFI vs. legacy (CSM) mode matching the disk (GPT vs. MBR), loose data/power cable, then whether the firmware sees the drive at all. A drive missing in firmware is a hardware or connection fault; a drive present but not booting points to a damaged boot sector/boot loader.

Exam tip Flash drive left in the port is the classic "check the obvious" answer.

Data loss/corruption, slow read/write and low IOPS

Data loss/corruption: files that won't open, file system errors: run a disk check (chkdsk), restore from backup, and check S.M.A.R.T. Extended read/write times: a dying HDD retrying bad sectors, a full or highly fragmented HDD, or an SSD with no free space. Low IOPS (input/output operations per second): wrong drive type for the workload (slow HDDs under a database), a degraded or rebuilding RAID, or wrong cache settings.

Exam tip Database slow on 5,400 rpm drives? Low IOPS: move it to SSD/NVMe or RAID 10.

Check yourself 1The inventory database runs on 5,400 rpm hard drives and is slow under load. The array is healthy and S.M.A.R.T. shows no problems. What is the BEST fix?

  1. Run chkdsk on the database volume
  2. Silence the RAID alarm
  3. Move it to SSD or NVMe drives
  4. Change the UEFI boot order
Show the answer

Answer: C. Move it to SSD or NVMe drives

Slow 5,400 rpm drives give low IOPS under a database workload. With the array and drives healthy, faster storage (SSD/NVMe, or RAID 10) is the fix.

Missing drives in the OS

A new drive shows in UEFI but not in File Explorer: it is probably not initialized, partitioned or formatted, or has no drive letter. Open Disk Management: initialize (GPT), create a volume, format, and assign a letter. If it is missing in UEFI too: check the cable, power, port, M.2 slot type (SATA vs. NVMe) and storage driver.

Exam tip Seen in firmware but not in Explorer = Disk Management. Not seen in firmware = hardware/connection.

RAID failure and array missing

RAID failure: a degraded array still works but has lost fault tolerance; replace the failed drive with a matching one and let it rebuild (slow, risky time). If more drives fail than the level allows (2 in RAID 5), the array fails and you restore from backup. Array missing: the controller does not show the array: check controller health, cables/backplane, controller firmware/driver, and never initialize (that erases it).

Exam tip RAID 0 has no redundancy: one failed drive = array and data gone.

Check yourself 2A user's desktop makes a repeating clicking noise and file copies are very slow. What should the technician do FIRST after confirming the noise is the hard drive?

  1. Run a defragmentation of the drive
  2. Reinstall the operating system
  3. Update the storage controller driver
  4. Back up the user's data right away
Show the answer

Answer: D. Back up the user's data right away

Clicking signals mechanical failure. Protect the data first, then replace the drive.

Practice questions

Answer in your head, then open the answer. Ranger's Help Desk has 436 questions like these for A+ Core 1, with mock exams.

Question 1A server's RAID 5 array has four drives. One drive caddy shows a solid amber LED while the others blink green. What should the technician do?

  1. Replace all four drives at the same time
  2. Power off the server and then run CHKDSK
  3. Replace the amber drive and let it rebuild
  4. Reinitialize the array from the controller
Show the answer

Answer: C. Replace the amber drive and let it rebuild

Amber LED status indicators usually mark a failed or predicted-fail drive. RAID 5 survives one failure, so replace that drive and rebuild.

Question 2A hard drive in a user's PC begins making a grinding noise. What should the technician do FIRST?

  1. Defragment the drive to reduce head movement
  2. Run Disk Cleanup to remove temporary files
  3. Ignore it unless files start to go missing
  4. Back up the data, then replace the drive
Show the answer

Answer: D. Back up the data, then replace the drive

Grinding usually means mechanical failure, such as head or bearing wear. Copy data off while the drive still works.

Question 3A laptop's hard drive makes repeating clicking sounds, and the OS freezes when opening files. What do these symptoms MOST likely indicate?

  1. The read/write heads are failing
  2. The partition style is MBR instead of GPT
  3. The SATA cable is too long for the bay
  4. The drive is more than 90% full
Show the answer

Answer: A. The read/write heads are failing

Clicking is a classic sign of failing heads or a drive that cannot read its data. Back up at once and replace it.

Question 4After a firmware update, a PC shows "No bootable device found." The SSD appears in UEFI. What should the technician check FIRST?

  1. The power supply wattage
  2. The RAID level
  3. The SATA data cable
  4. The boot order
Show the answer

Answer: D. The boot order

Firmware updates often reset settings. If the drive is detected, check that it (or Windows Boot Manager) is first in the boot order.

Question 5A technician clones an old MBR disk to a new GPT NVMe drive with UEFI boot files. The PC now says "No bootable device found." Based on the exhibit, what should be changed?

  1. Set SATA Mode to RAID
  2. Enable the boot password
  3. Set Boot Mode to UEFI
  4. Disable the TPM
Show the answer

Answer: C. Set Boot Mode to UEFI

A GPT disk with UEFI boot files needs the firmware in UEFI mode. Legacy/CSM mode looks for an MBR boot sector and finds none.

Practice it in Ranger's Help DeskThe same lessons as a story, with drills, hands-on labs and mock exams. Free, in your browser.
Play free

CompTIA, A+, Network+, Security+ and Linux+ are trademarks of CompTIA, Inc. Ranger Gamez is not affiliated with or endorsed by CompTIA. The practice questions are written to the published exam objectives; they are not real exam questions.