220-1102 Question 30
Single answerInternal hard drive (partition)A technician is preparing a new 2 TB internal hard drive in a Windows 10 workstation for use as a single data volume. The drive appears in Disk Management as Online and Unallocated. The user wants one partition that uses the entire disk and is accessible in File Explorer with a drive letter. Which action should the technician take NEXT to meet this requirement?
- A
Create a new simple volume on the unallocated space, assign a drive letter, and format it with NTFS
- B
Mark the disk as Active so Windows can mount it and assign a drive letter automatically
- C
Convert the disk to Dynamic, then create a spanned volume across the same disk
- D
Run chkdsk /f on the disk to repair the partition table before creating a volume
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
When a new internal hard drive is shown as Online and Unallocated in Windows, the next practical step is to create a partition/volume in the unallocated space, then format it with a supported file system and assign a drive letter. In Windows Disk Management, this is typically done by creating a New Simple Volume on a basic disk. NTFS is the standard file system for Windows internal data volumes because it supports permissions, large files, and reliability features expected on modern systems. Marking a partition Active only applies to boot scenarios on MBR disks and does not make an unallocated data disk usable. Dynamic disks and spanned volumes are meant for advanced storage configurations and are unnecessary here. Microsoft best practices for disk provisioning in Windows align with initializing the disk if needed, creating a volume, formatting it, and assigning a drive letter so it becomes accessible in File Explorer.
- A. Correct.
Correct. In Windows Disk Management, an unallocated internal drive must have a partition/volume created before it can be used in File Explorer. For a basic disk with all space unused, creating a new simple volume, assigning a drive letter, and formatting it with NTFS is the standard process. This directly satisfies the user's requirement for one partition using the entire disk.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Marking a partition as Active is related to bootable BIOS/MBR system partitions, not making a data drive usable in Windows. An unallocated disk has no usable partition yet, so setting Active would not create a volume or make the disk appear in File Explorer.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Dynamic disks are not required for a single-partition data drive on one internal disk. A spanned volume is used to combine space from multiple disks, not to create a standard single volume on one new disk. Converting to Dynamic would add unnecessary complexity and is not best practice for this scenario.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. chkdsk /f is used to check and repair file system errors on an existing formatted volume. Because this drive is currently unallocated and does not yet contain a partition or file system, chkdsk is not the appropriate next step.