Apply Your Knowledge


Exercises

12.1. Creating and testing a boot disk

This exercise demonstrates how to create a boot disk. This boot disk can be used to start the server when your system files are corrupted or when you need to boot to recover a failed mirrored set. This exercise requires a blank floppy disk.

Estimated Time: 20 minutes.

1.

Format the floppy disk, either from the command line or from Windows Explorer or My Computer.

2.

Using either Windows Explorer or My Computer, confirm that your view settings allow you to see hidden and system files.

3.

From the system partition, copy BOOT.INI, NtdETECT.COM, NTLDR, and NTBOOTDD.SYS (if present) to your floppy disk. Remove the floppy disk.

4.

Delete NtdETECT.COM on the system partition.

5.

Reboot your server. The reboot should fail.

6.

Insert your floppy disk and reboot the server. The reboot should be successful. Copy NtdETECT.COM from the floppy to your system partition.

12.2. Repairing a mirrored volume

This exercise demonstrates how to repair a mirrored volume. This exercise assumes that you are repairing the mirrored volume in a server that uses hot-plug drives. For a procedure for use in a server that does not have hot-plug drives, see Step by Step 12.20, "Repairing a Mirrored Volume."

Estimated Time: 30 minutes.

1.

Create a mirrored volume using the steps outlined earlier in this chapter.

2.

Remove one of the drives in the mirror volume. This will simulate a failure.

3.

Open the Disk Management snap-in and check the status of the mirrored volume. It should show a status of Failed Redundancy.

4.

In the Disk Management snap-in, right-click the mirrored volume and select Remove Mirror.

5.

When the Remove Mirror dialog box appears, select the disk that you removed and click Remove Mirror. Select Yes to confirm.

6.

Replace the drive that you removed earlier. In the Disk Management snap-in, select Re-Scan Disks.

7.

Right-click the remaining disk from the mirror and select Add Mirror. When the Add Mirror dialog box appears, select the disk that you just added. Click Add Mirror.

12.3. Defragmenting a volume

This exercise demonstrates how to defragment a volume. This exercise is nondestructive, so it can be used on any volume.

Estimated Time: 20 minutes.

1.

Using either Windows Explorer or My Computer, display the root of the volume that you want to defragment.

2.

Right-click the volume and select Properties.

3.

On the Tools tab of the volume's Properties dialog box, click the Defragment Now button.

4.

When the Disk Defragmenter screen is displayed, select Analyze.

5.

When you are presented with the dialog box asking whether you want to view the report or close, click the Defragment button.

6.

After the defragmentation process completes, you can view the report.

Exam Questions

1.

Davin has decided to configure a RAID-5 array on one of his servers to use for file storage. He has five 50GB SCSI hard disks available. What is the total amount of disk space that will be available after he finishes his configuration?

A.

250GB

B.

250MB

C.

200GB

D.

225GB

E.

245GB


2.

John has been assigned to build five Windows Server 2003 servers. His boss has specified that the system volume has to be fault tolerant. What type of volume can he configure in Windows Server 2003 to attain fault tolerance of the system volume?

A.

Simple volume

B.

Spanned volume

C.

Mirrored volume (RAID-1)

D.

Striped volume (RAID-0)

E.

Striped volume with parity (RAID-5)


3.

Shelly is the junior system administrator for Travel Inc. She has been assigned to compress the files and folders that contain the travel arrangements for Company B for the last quarter. She opens Windows Explorer and navigates to the necessary folders and selects the properties for the folders, but does not see the option to enable compression. What could be the possible cause of this?

A.

Shelly is not a member of the Disk Administrators group.

B.

The folders are encrypted using EFS.

C.

Shelly is accessing a RAID-5 volume.

D.

The volume is formatted using FAT32.


4.

Joe wants to add fault tolerance to the storage disks on his Windows Server 2003 servers. His budget is tight this fiscal year, so he has to be able to balance fault tolerance with available storage capacity. Which of the following disk configurations will give Joe the best combination of fault tolerance and storage capacity?

A.

Striped volume

B.

Spanned volume

C.

Mirrored volume

D.

Striped with parity (RAID-5) volume


5.

Jeff needs to add more space to his boot/system partition. The partition resides on a basic volume formatted with NTFS. What are Jeff's options to expand the partition?

A.

Open the Disk Management snap-in and select Extend Partition.

B.

Use the command-line utility DISKPART.EXE and use the commands to extend the partition.

C.

Convert the partition to a dynamic volume and then open the Disk Management snap-in and select Extend Volume.

D.

The partition cannot be expanded.


6.

Joe needs to build a Windows Server 2003 server to host a mission-critical SQL database. What type of disk configuration should he use for the boot/system partition?

A.

Striped volume

B.

Spanned volume

C.

Mirrored volume (RAID-1)

D.

Striped with parity (RAID-5) volume


7.

Joe needs to build a Windows Server 2003 server to host a mission-critical SQL database. He has already decided on the optimum configuration for his boot/system partition. However, he still needs to make a decision on the optimum configuration for the disks used to store his database. His database will be mostly read with batch updates after business hours. What type of disk configuration should he use for the database?

A.

Striped volume

B.

Spanned volume

C.

Mirrored volume (RAID-1)

D.

Striped with parity (RAID-5) volume.


8.

Loren is responsible for monitoring an organization that has more than 2,000 Windows Server 2003 servers. While making his daily check of the servers, he discovers that one of them has suffered the failure of a mirrored volume. Because the server supports hot-plug drives, what are the first steps that he should perform to accomplish the repair after breaking the mirror?

A.

Replace the drive, open the Disk Management snap-in, and select Re-Scan drives.

B.

Power down the server, replace the drive, and then power up the server.

C.

Replace the drive and open the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard.

D.

Replace the drive, open the Disk Management snap-in, and create a new mirrored volume.


9.

You are the network administrator for Skelly Inc. All network servers run Windows Server 2003. A server named FileSrv1 contains a simple volume that stores mission-critical data files. FileSrv1 experiences hardware failure and stops functioning. Replacement parts will be available within 72 hours. A second file server named FileSrv2 is available. However, FileSrv2 has insufficient disk space to hold the data on FileSrv1. You need to provide immediate access to the data on FileSrv1. First, you install the disks from FileSrv1 on FileSrv2 and restart FileSrv2. However, the disks do not appear in Disk Management.

Which action or actions should you perform? (Choose all that apply.)

A.

Install the disks from FileSrv1 on FileSrv2. In Disk Management, initialize the disks.

B.

Install the disks from FileSrv1 on FileSrv2. In Disk Management, rescan the disks.

C.

In Disk Management, select each disk from FileSrv1. Then select the option to import foreign disks.

D.

In Disk Management, select each disk from FileSrv1. Then select the option to repair the volume.

E.

On FileSrv2, run the mountvol /p command from a command prompt.

F.

On FileSrv2, convert the dynamic disks to basic disks.


10.

You are the network administrator for Skelly Inc. All network servers run Windows Server 2003. A server named FileSrv1 contains a RAID-5 volume that stores mission-critical data files. Routine Monitoring reveals that one of the volumes in your RAID-5 array has failed. During your maintenance window, you shut down the server and replace the failed volume. After you restart the server, you need to ensure that another disk failure doesn't cause the users to lose access to their data. What should you do?

A.

Initialize the new disk. Select the failed RAID-5 set, and then select the Repair Volume option.

B.

Import the foreign disk. Select the failed RAID-5 set, and then select the Repair Volume option.

C.

Select the failed RAID-5 set, and then select the Reactive Volume option.

D.

Import the foreign disk. Select the failed RAID-5 set, and then select the Reactive Disk option.


Answers to Exam Questions

1.

C. 200GB is the correct answer. A RAID-5 array will always use the equivalent space of one of the disks in the array for parity information. See "Implementing RAID Solutions."

2.

C. The only type of volume that supports fault tolerance that can contain a system volume is a mirrored volume (RAID-1). See "Implementing RAID Solutions."

3.

D. Compression is supported only on NTFS volumes. Although EFS and compression are mutually exclusive, the compression option will still be displayed. See "The NT File System (NTFS)."

4.

D. The striped with parity volume will give Joe the best combination of fault tolerance and storage capacity. Of the choices available, only RAID-1 (mirrored volume) and RAID-5 offer fault tolerance. Whereas RAID-1 results in a 50% cost in disk space, RAID-5 exacts less overhead. For example, in a configuration of four drives of 10GB each, RAID-5 will require 10GB for parity, or 25%. See "Implementing RAID Solutions."

5.

C. The Disk Management snap-in cannot be used to extend a partition on a basic disk. Although DISKPART.EXE can be used to expand a partition on a basic disk, it cannot extend the partition from which the system was booted. A basic partition must be converted to a dynamic volume before it can be extended. The Disk Management snap-in can be used to extend a volume on a dynamic disk, even the one that the system was booted from. See "Introduction to Basic Disks."

6.

C. Of the choices available, only RAID-1 and RAID-5 offer fault tolerance. However, only the RAID-1 configuration can be used for boot partitions. See "Implementing RAID Solutions."

7.

D. Of the choices available, only RAID-1 and RAID-5 offer fault tolerance. Of these two configurations, RAID-5 offers the best read performance because the data is striped across multiple volumes, thereby increasing read efficiency. However, because RAID-5 has to write parity information with the data, write performance is not optimal. Fortunately, updates to the database will be performed during off hours, so that should not be a problem. See "Implementing RAID Solutions."

8.

A. The proper way to start the procedure on a server that uses hot-plug drives is to replace the drive and then perform a rescan in the Disk Management snap-in. This will start the Disk Initialization Wizard. Answer B would work in some circumstances. However, if the primary drive of a mirrored volume that is being used for the boot/system partition fails, you will not be able to restart your server without a fault-tolerant boot floppy. See "Recovering a Failed Mirrored Drive."

9.

B and C. Without a rescan, your new disks probably won't be recognized. When you move a dynamic disk from one computer to another, Windows Server 2003 considers the disk as a foreign disk by default. When Disk Manager indicates the status of a new disk as foreign, you have to import the disk before you can access volumes on the disk. Either initializing or converting the disks will erase all your data. Repairing the disk isn't necessary, and the Mountvol command is a way to link volumes without requiring a drive letter, which wouldn't do you any good because the volume hasn't been scanned and imported yet. See "Importing Foreign Disks."

10.

C. Because this is a new volume and not a foreign disk, it will not have to be imported. Because we are adding it to an array, the Reactivate Volume option will initialize the volume automatically. Remember that RAID-5 arrays can provide fault tolerance for only one failed disk, so be sure to replace the failed disk as soon as possible. See "Recovering a Failed RAID-5 Drive."

Suggested Readings and Resources

1. Boswell, William. Inside Windows Server 2003. Addison-Wesley, 2003. ISBN: 0735711585.

2. Matthews, Marty. Windows Server 2003: A Beginners Guide. McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 0072193093.

3. Microsoft Knowledgebase article: Best Practices for Using Dynamic Disks on Windows Server 2003-based Computers. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;816307.

4. Microsoft Knowledgebase article: Description of Disk Groups in Windows Disk Management. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;222189.

5. Morimoto, Rand, et. al. Creating a Fault-Tolerant Environment in Windows Server 2003. http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=174367&rl=1.

6. Minasi, Mark, et al. Mark Minasi's Windows XP and Server 2003 Resource Kit. Sybex, 2003. ISBN: 0782140807.

7. Minasi, Mark, et al. Mastering Windows Server 2003 Server. Sybex, 2003. ISBN: 0782141307.

8. Shapiro, Jeffrey, et al. Windows Server 2003 Bible R2 Edition. John Wiley and Sons, 2006. ISBN: 0764549375.




MCSA. MCSE 70-290 Exam Prep. Managing and Maintaining a MicrosoftR Windows ServerT 2003 Environment
MCSA/MCSE 70-290 Exam Prep: Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0789736489
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 219
Authors: Lee Scales

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