220-1102 Operating Systems Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✓

  0x0000007B: The system cannot access the boot device

  Why this is correct

  0x0000007B is a Windows Stop code (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) that occurs during the startup phase when the Windows kernel cannot read from the boot volume—typically because the storage controller driver is missing, the boot device is disconnected, or the Master Boot Record/BCD store is corrupted. This bug check appears before the OS fully loads, so it is not a driver exception but a low-level storage access failure.

• ✓

  0x0000001E: A kernel-mode program generated an exception that the error handler did not catch

  Why this is correct

  0x0000001E (KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED) is a bug check triggered when a kernel-mode program, such as a device driver or core OS component, raises an exception that the operating system's exception dispatcher fails to catch. Because kernel-mode exceptions are not allowed to propagate, the system halts immediately; common culprits include defective drivers, incompatible hardware, or corrupted kernel files, and the bug check code itself may reference the specific exception type involved.

• ✓

  0x00000050: The system referenced invalid memory

  Why this is correct

  0x00000050 (PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA) indicates that the system attempted to reference an invalid memory address—specifically, it issued a page fault on a page whose memory is neither present in physical RAM nor valid in the page file, and because the address is in a nonpaged area, no secondary storage backing can satisfy the request. This often points to failing physical memory, a defective hard drive, or a driver that is writing to a freed memory block.

• ✗

  0x0000007B: A kernel-mode program generated an exception that the error handler did not catch

  Why it's wrong here

  The description of 0x0000007B as an unhandled kernel-mode exception is incorrect because it mismatches the actual meaning of that bug check code. An unhandled kernel exception is represented by 0x0000001E (KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED), which is a runtime crash arising from a driver or kernel routine throwing an exception that no catch handler processes. 0x0000007B, by contrast, is exclusively a boot-time failure indicating that Windows cannot access the boot device, so the code-to-definition pairing in this answer is wrong.

• ✗

  0x0000000A: The system referenced invalid memory

  Why it's wrong here

  The description of 0x0000000A as referencing invalid memory is incorrect because 0x0000000A (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) means a kernel-mode process accessed paged memory (or a pageable address) while the IRQL was at a level too high to handle a page fault. This is a timing and privilege-level conflict, not merely an invalid memory reference; the description actually belongs to 0x00000050 (PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA), where the system literally references a non-existent or unavailable memory page.

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