Chapter 19 - Troubleshooting Theory, OSs & Security

Question 1

tell me the three things that should never change, regardless of how you approach the troubleshooting process

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Answer 1

always back up your data before making any changes to a system

establish priorities (escalate or de-escalate the job as necessary)

document EVERYTHING

Question 2

tell me three questions you can ask the user for clarification on the problem at hand

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Answer 2

can you show me the problem
how often does it happen
has any new hardware or software been installed recently

Question 3

what should you do when you encounter multiple problems that appear unrelated?

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Answer 3

identify them one at a time and solve them one at a time

Question 4

say that you are troubleshooting and need to strip the system down to the basics. speaking in terms of SOFTWARE, what does this mean you’ll usually have to do?

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Answer 4

get the computer into Safe Mode so that most of the drivers do not load and go from there

Question 5

you are about to eliminate a possibility as to why something is not working right. why should you bother going to the vendor’s website as part of your troubleshooting process?

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Answer 5

because there might be a specific solution for your problem.

Question 6

true/false: ALWAYS ground yourself before digging around inside the case

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Answer 6

true

Question 7

you are establishing a plan of action. you’ve just tested a solution, and depending on the results, you’ll now do one of three things:

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Answer 7

if the first fix didn’t work, try something else
if needed, implement the fix on other computers
if everything is working, document the solution

Question 8

what does it usually mean if you get the blue screen of death and your windows gui fails to start properly?

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Answer 8

there’s a driver that’s misconfigured OR there’s some hardware that’s misconfigured

Question 9

for windows xp, vista, and 7, tell me the name of the file that bootstraps the system

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Answer 9

xp - NTLDR

vista and 7 - BOOTMGR

Question 10

what’s the file that recognizes and loads the SCSI interface?

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Answer 10

NTBOOTDD.SYS

Question 11

you have chosen to boot the system with the Boot Logging startup option engaged. what is the file that will hold the boot log information?

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Answer 11

NTBTLOG.TXT

Question 12

what does DLL stand for?

give me an example.

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Answer 12

dynamic link library

HAL.DLL

Question 13

what is BOOT.INI?

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Answer 13

its a text file that specifies what operating systems are installed on the computer and where they are on the partitioned disk

Question 14

what are executive subsystems responsible for?

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Answer 14

they parse the Registry for config info, and start services and drivers that are needed

Question 15

say that you have a system that starts shutting down and restarting when its not supposed to, and it just keeps on doing so. you’ve checked the sleep settings and found nothing out of the ordinary. what do you do next?

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Answer 15

you need to start looking at drivers. put the computer into safe mode and go through them one by one till you find the one that is malfunctioning

Question 16

what’s the likely reason that your RAID is not detected during installation?

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Answer 16

you don’t have the right drivers taken care of

Question 17

tell me the path for rolling back a driver

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Answer 17

go to device manager, click on the name of the device in question, go to properties, then on the drivers tab click the button for roll back driver

Question 18

if your device driver is not digitally signed by microsoft, what does that mean?

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Answer 18

it means that it hasn’t been tested for compatibility with your version of windows

Question 19

you get a message saying that the BOOTMGR file is missing. what do you do?

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Answer 19

you have two options:

system recovery options and choose startup repair
OR
type bootrec /fixboot at the command prompt

Question 20

what do you do if your BCD file is missing?

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Answer 20

you have two options:

startup repair
OR
type bootrec /rebuildbcd at the command prompt

Question 21

what do you do if your GUI fails to load?

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Answer 21

use the windows repair cd or installation dvd

Question 22

recovery console in windows xp is a command line utility used for troubleshooting. you have a similar tool in windows 7 and vista, but what is it called in those operating systems?

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Answer 22

system recovery options

Question 23

you are in the recovery console and are using commands to fix stuff. what command do you issue to build or rebuild the BOOT.INI file?

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Answer 23

BOOTCFG

Question 24

what does the FIXBOOT recovery console command do?

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Answer 24

writes a new boot sector

Question 25

what does the FIXMBR recovery console command do?

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Answer 25

checks and fixes (if possible) the master boot record

Question 26

which users can run the SFC machine?

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Answer 26

only users with the administrative permissions

Question 27

You can use a recovery Cd set to bring the computer back to the point when it was new. When should you use the recovery set?

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Answer 27

only when you’re ready to start from scratch

Question 28

what’s a quick way to get to the disk defragmenter?

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Answer 28

type defrag into the search box and go from there

Question 29

what is REGSVR32?

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Answer 29

its a tool that allows you to register and unregister modules and controls for troubleshooting purposes.