Module 3 - Unit 5 - Using File Systems

Question 1

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?

Answer 1

The hard drive has to be partitioned and formatted to have a file system in order to read, write and store files.

Question 2

What is partitioning a hard disk?

Answer 2

The act of dividing your drive into logically separated storage areas.

Question 3

How many partition is needed in order to format a hard drive?

Answer 3

At least one partition.

Question 4

What is the term for an active partition?

Answer 4

It is called system partition. The system partition is where the computer uses to boot. Some operating systems keeps the system partition hidden.

Question 5

List and describe the different file systems

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

What is the formatting used on most removable drives and disks?

Answer 6

FAT32

Question 7

What are CDs and DVDs most often formatted with?

Answer 7

Universal Disk Format (UDF)

Question 8

What is the older CD format for best compatibility with legacy drives?

Answer 8

ISO 9660 or CDFS

Question 9

What is one main difference between ext3 and ext2?

Answer 9

ext3 supports file system journaling where as ext2 does not.

Question 10

What is the file system that Apple computers uses.

Answer 10

Apple File System (APFS), although older macOS versions uses Hierarchical File System (HFS+)

Question 11

List and describe 6 features found in modern file systems

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

What are the reserved characters for ext4 file system?

Answer 12

A forward slash ‘/’.

Question 13

What is the common reserved characters for most file systems?

Answer 13

A forward slash ‘/’.

Question 14

What is the top-level folder on the hierarchy?

Answer 14

root

Question 15

List and describe 3 types of folders found in Windows.

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

True or False? The containers for files in Linux is called Folders.

Answer 16

False. It is called directories on Linux.

Question 17

True of False? Using a forward slash on command prompt on Windows will work

Answer 17

True. Although Windows OS uses backward slash (‘'), it still recognizes forward slashes.

Question 18

What is the Public profile on Windows file systems?

Answer 18

It is to allow users of the PC to share files between different profiles.

Question 19

What is the feature Windows file systems have to provide easy access to folders?

Answer 19

It is called “libraries” where directory of folders can be located or traversed with a single click.

Question 20

True or False? Files store either text or binary data

Answer 20

True.

Question 21

True or False? You cannot have two periods in a file name as it denotes file extension

Answer 21

False. Only the last period matters and denotes the file extension

Question 22

There are 3 tabs on Folder Options in File Explorer, ‘General’, ‘View’ and ‘Search’, which one contains the setting for hidden files?

Answer 22

View Tab

Question 23

What is the combination of mouse and keyboard to copy files on Windows?

Answer 23

Hold CTRL while drag and drop

Question 24

What is the combination of mouse and keyboard to create a shortcut to a file on Windows?

Answer 24

Hold CTRL + SHIFT while drag and drop

Question 25

What is the default capacity of Recycle Bin?

Answer 25

The default capacity is limited to 10% of the drive.

Question 26

How to permanently delete a file on Windows without it being able to restore via Recycle Bin?

Answer 26

Hold down SHIFT as you delete the file.

Question 27

Name and describe 4 file attributes in Windows file system

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Compare both 'Full control' and 'Modify' permissions of a file in Windows

Answer 28

Full Control allows the user to change its permissions and owner whereas modify only allows modification without changing its permissions or ownership

Question 29

Name 4 types of file extension that are used by word processing software

Answer 29

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

Question 30

What is the purpose of Portable Document Format (PDF)?

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

List and describe 5 image file types and its compression type.

Answer 31

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

Question 32

True or False? Storing an image file using the lossless compression will discard some original data

Answer 32

False. Lossless compression does not discard any original data, just stored more efficiently. Lossy compression, however, discard some original data.

Question 33

List and describe 5 video file types and its purpose

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What is the H.264 codec?

Answer 34

A video compression standard known also as Advanced Video Coding (AVC) or MPEG-4. Highly used format for recording, compression and distribution of videos.

Question 35

List and describe 5 audio file types and its purpose

Answer 35

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

Question 36

List and describe 3 executable file types

Answer 36

i) exe - basic program file in Windows ii) msi - windows installer file iii) app - .exe equivalent on macOS

Question 37

List and describe 5 compression formats

Answer 37

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

Question 38

In Windows, you can access data via letter-labeled "drives." Do these correspond exactly to physical disks?

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

What type of file system must the partition that Windows files are installed on use?

Answer 39

NTFS.

Question 40

What default installation folders contain system and application files that should not normally be delete or modified manually?

Answer 40

The 'Windows' and 'Program files' folders

Question 41

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?

Answer 41

C:\User\David\Documents

Question 42

How is a Windows library different from a folder?

Answer 42

A library acts as a virtual folder by displaying the contents of multiple folders, which could be located on different drives.

Question 43

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?

Answer 43

Save As.

Question 44

Why should you be more careful about deleting files from a USB flash drive than from the main hard drive?

Answer 44

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).

Question 45

What view options could you use to show files of a particular type sorted by date?

Answer 45

Group the files by file type then sort by date.

Question 46

What kind of data would you expect to find in a file with a TIFF extension?

Answer 46

This is an image file format.

Question 47

What is a zip file?

Answer 47

A file archive containing other files in a compressed format.