What is the recommended action when the drive surface is deteriorating?

• A. Extend warranty
• B. Replace drive
• C. Run more self-tests
• D. Increase caching

Answer: (B)

Deteriorating drive surfaces indicate physical damage to the magnetic medium, which increases the chance of unreadable sectors and data corruption. The safest and most effective action is to replace the drive and restore data from backups (or rebuild in a redundant array if applicable). A new drive provides a healthy surface for reliable reads and prevents further data loss that could occur from continuing to use the failing unit. Running additional self-tests won’t repair the damaged media and could delay a needed replacement, and increasing caching doesn’t fix the underlying problem and might even mask symptoms. Extending a warranty doesn’t address the data risk either. After replacement, you should restore from the latest backup and verify data integrity, then monitor for any other drives showing signs of failure.