Module 3 - Unit 5 - Using File Systems Flashcards
You have a brand-new and blank hard drive installed on your computer motherboard. What do you have to do in order for the hard drive to read, write and store files?
The hard drive has to be partitioned and formatted to have a file system in order to read, write and store files.
What is partitioning a hard disk?
The act of dividing your drive into logically separated storage areas.
How many partition is needed in order to format a hard drive?
At least one partition.
What is the term for an active partition?
It is called system partition. The system partition is where the computer uses to boot. Some operating systems keeps the system partition hidden.
List and describe the different file systems
a) File Allocation Table (FAT) - used by older versions of Windows OS, allows a partition size of 4 GB up to 32 GB
b) NTFS (New Technology File System) - 64-bit, support all the essential file system features.
What is the formatting used on most removable drives and disks?
FAT32
What are CDs and DVDs most often formatted with?
Universal Disk Format (UDF)
What is the older CD format for best compatibility with legacy drives?
ISO 9660 or CDFS
What is one main difference between ext3 and ext2?
ext3 supports file system journaling where as ext2 does not.
What is the file system that Apple computers uses.
Apple File System (APFS), although older macOS versions uses Hierarchical File System (HFS+)
List and describe 6 features found in modern file systems
i) Compression - reduce the amount of disk space
ii) Encryption - file can be accessed with an encryption key
iii) Permissions - Access Control List (ACL) allows a file to have specific read, write, modify permissions
iv) Journaling - tracks changes or intended changes in a log
v) Limitations - maximum capacity and size of individual files
vi) Naming Rules - certain length (typical 255 char), encoding (typical Unicode), reserved characters.
What are the reserved characters for ext4 file system?
A forward slash ‘/’.
What is the common reserved characters for most file systems?
A forward slash ‘/’.
What is the top-level folder on the hierarchy?
root
List and describe 3 types of folders found in Windows.
i) Windows - contains drivers, logs, add-in-applications, system files, registry etc.
ii) Program Files - installed applications
iii) Users - user profile settings, documents, cookies, shortcuts etc.
True or False? The containers for files in Linux is called Folders.
False. It is called directories on Linux.
True of False? Using a forward slash on command prompt on Windows will work
True. Although Windows OS uses backward slash (‘'), it still recognizes forward slashes.
What is the Public profile on Windows file systems?
It is to allow users of the PC to share files between different profiles.
What is the feature Windows file systems have to provide easy access to folders?
It is called “libraries” where directory of folders can be located or traversed with a single click.
True or False? Files store either text or binary data
True.
True or False? You cannot have two periods in a file name as it denotes file extension
False. Only the last period matters and denotes the file extension
There are 3 tabs on Folder Options in File Explorer, ‘General’, ‘View’ and ‘Search’, which one contains the setting for hidden files?
View Tab
What is the combination of mouse and keyboard to copy files on Windows?
Hold CTRL while drag and drop
What is the combination of mouse and keyboard to create a shortcut to a file on Windows?
Hold CTRL + SHIFT while drag and drop
What is the default capacity of Recycle Bin?
The default capacity is limited to 10% of the drive.
How to permanently delete a file on Windows without it being able to restore via Recycle Bin?
Hold down SHIFT as you delete the file.
Name and describe 4 file attributes in Windows file system
i) Read-only (R) - prevent any file changes
ii) Hidden (H) - visible or not
iii) System (S) - not accessible by ordinary users
iv) Archive (A) - show whether a file has changed since last backup
Compare both ‘Full control’ and ‘Modify’ permissions of a file in Windows
Full Control allows the user to change its permissions and owner whereas modify only allows modification without changing its permissions or ownership
Name 4 types of file extension that are used by word processing software
i) .txt - Text only file
ii) .rtf - Rich Text Format, has basic formatting, fonts, paragraph and tables
iii) .odf - Open Document Format, XML-based specification
iv) .doc/.docx - used by Microsoft Word, docx is XML-based
What is the purpose of Portable Document Format (PDF)?
PDF is used for distributing document. It is now an open standard, before that it was used primarily on Adobe software. It is envisaged as a ‘final’ product since it is not meant to be edited on a rolling basis; a word document would be more suitable for editing.
List and describe 5 image file types and its compression type.
i) jpg/jpeg - known as Joint Pictures Expert Group, uses a lossy compression
ii) gif - known as Graphics Interchange Format, uses a lossless compression
iii) tiff - known as Tagged Image File Format, can use lossless and JPEG compression
iv) png - known as Portable Network Graphics, uses a lossless format, to replace gif
v) bmp - bitmap image, uses a Windows-only lossless format
True or False? Storing an image file using the lossless compression will discard some original data
False. Lossless compression does not discard any original data, just stored more efficiently. Lossy compression, however, discard some original data.
List and describe 5 video file types and its purpose
i) mpg - an early MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group) format
ii) mp4 - MPEG-4 standard a/v file format, container for audio and video media streams
iii) flv - designed to deliver Flash videos created by Adobe
iv) wmv - file format developed by Microsoft, format for DVD and Blu-ray
v) avi - legacy Windows-only video format
What is the H.264 codec?
A video compression standard known also as Advanced Video Coding (AVC) or MPEG-4. Highly used format for recording, compression and distribution of videos.
List and describe 5 audio file types and its purpose
i) mp3 - most popular audio format, uses lossy compression
ii) aac - Advanced Audio Coding, a successor to mp3
iii) m4a - audio-only file format
iv) flac - achieves file size compression without discarding audio data
v) wav - early Windows audio file format
List and describe 3 executable file types
i) exe - basic program file in Windows
ii) msi - windows installer file
iii) app - .exe equivalent on macOS
List and describe 5 compression formats
i) zip - file compression supported natively by Windows, Mac OS and Linux
ii) tar - originally meant to write to a magnetic tape, commonly coupled with gz for compression
iii) gz - created by gzip utility, used widely on Linux computers
iv) iso - files used by optical media
v) dmg - image file format used by Apple computers
In Windows, you can access data via letter-labeled “drives.” Do these correspond exactly to physical disks?
Not necessarily in the case of hard disks, which can be configured with multiple partitions, each of which can be assigned a drive letter. Optical drives and flash memory cards cannot be partitioned however.
What type of file system must the partition that Windows files are installed on use?
NTFS.
What default installation folders contain system and application files that should not normally be delete or modified manually?
The ‘Windows’ and ‘Program files’ folders
What is the file path to the documents folder for a user named “David,” assuming Windows is installed to a hard disk with a single partition using the default settings?
C:\User\David\Documents
How is a Windows library different from a folder?
A library acts as a virtual folder by displaying the contents of multiple folders, which could be located on different drives.
If you have made changes to a file and want to keep both the original file and the modified version, what command should you use?
Save As.
Why should you be more careful about deleting files from a USB flash drive than from the main hard drive?
The files will not be recycled so there is no possibility of retrieving them if you change your mind (at least, not without using specialist data recovery software).
What view options could you use to show files of a particular type sorted by date?
Group the files by file type then sort by date.
What kind of data would you expect to find in a file with a TIFF extension?
This is an image file format.
What is a zip file?
A file archive containing other files in a compressed format.
