International Academy of Design & Technology

IT IT110

Chapter 8

REVIEWING THE BASICS

1)Name four ATA standards for interfacing with hard drives.

2. What are the two data transfer modes used by hard drives?

3. What are the two types of parallel ATA data cables used with hard drives?

4. What is the name of the ATA standard that uses a serial data cable?

5. What are the two most popular spindle speeds measured in RPMs currently used for hard drives?

6. How does serial ATA help keep a computer case cool better than parallel ATA?

7. If a hard drive has three platters, how many heads does it have?

8. Given that there are 512 bytes per sector, calculate the hard drive storage for the following: heads = 32, tracks (cylinders) = 1,024, sectors/track = 63.

9. What are three modes that system BIOS can use to relate to hard drives?

10. Which mode must be used for a 10-GB hard drive?

11. What is the ATA standard that changed the number of bits used to address data on a hard drive?

12. How does block mode give faster access to a hard drive? How can you disable block mode?

13. When installing a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive on the same IDE channel, which do you configure as the master and which as the slave?

14. What are three ATA hard drive interface standards that do not use a 40-conductor hard drive cable?

15. Generally, which transfer mode is faster, DMA or PIO?

16. When two drives are connected to the same data cable connected to an IDE channel, how does BIOS know which drive controls the channel?
17. If a motherboard has two parallel ATA connections, how many EIDE devices can the system support?
18. If a hard drive is too small to physically fit snugly into the drive bay, what can you do?

19. How can you tell which side of a hard drive’s data cable connects to pin 1 on the drive?

20. If your BIOS does not support a large-capacity drive that you want to install, what five choices do you have?

21. Which ATA standard allows for serial ATA and Serial Attached SCSI to coexist in the same system?

22. What is the name of the power connector used with floppy drives?

23. How many pins does a floppy drive cable have?

24. What was the underlying cause that prevented hard drives from breaking the 137-GB size barrier until the ATA/ATAPI-6 standard was released?

25. Why does a serial ATA drive sometimes have two power connectors on the drive?

26. What is the name of the expansion card in a SCSI system that controls the SCSI bus?

27. Why is it not necessary to inform CMOS setup about the installation of a new hard drive?

28. Which has a faster interface to the system, an external serial ATA hard drive or an external FireWire hard drive?

29. On a floppy disk, how many bits are used for each entry in the FAT?

30. How can you tell if your motherboard chip set supports Ultra DMA mode?

THINKING CRITICALLY

1. You install a hard drive and then turn on the PC for the first time. You access CMOS setup and see that the drive is not recognized. Which of the following do you do next?
   1. Turn off the PC, open the case, and verify that memory modules on the motherboard have not become loose.
   2. Turn off the PC, open the case, and verify that the data cable and power cable are connected correctly and jumpers on the drive are set correctly.
   3. Verify that BIOS autodetection is enabled.

1. 4. Reboot the PC and enter CMOS setup again to see if it now recognizes the drive.

2. Every motherboard built today that includes serial ATA connectors has at least one parallel ATA connector on the board. What is the most important reason this parallel ATA is present?

1. The hard drive used for booting the OS must use a parallel ATA connector.

2. The IDE controller will not work without at least one parallel ATA connector.

3. It is so the board can accommodate older hard drives using the parallel ATA connector.

4. The parallel ATA connector is needed for EIDE drives such as a CD or DVD drive

3. You want to set up your desktop system to have a total hard drive space of 150 GB, but your system does not support drives larger than 120 GB. Which of the following do you do?

1. Buy a new motherboard that will support drives larger than 120 GB.