A technician builds a workstation with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and a B550 chipset motherboard. The technician installs a compatible NVMe M.2 SSD into the first M.2 slot (M.2_1). After powering on, the system boots from the NVMe drive, but two SATA ports (SATA 5 and SATA 6) are not detecting any drives. The technician confirms the SATA drives are powered and the cables are connected securely. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
The NVMe SSD is faulty and interfering with SATA controllers
A faulty NVMe drive would likely cause boot failures or errors, not selectively disable specific SATA ports. The drive boots correctly, so it is not faulty.
Best answer
The M.2 slot shares bandwidth with SATA ports, causing some SATA ports to be disabled
This is a known design of many B550 motherboards. When the M.2_1 slot is occupied, SATA ports 5 and 6 are often disabled because they share PCIe lanes. The motherboard manual typically lists this limitation.
Distractor review
The SATA cables are loose or damaged
The technician already confirmed the cables are securely connected. Additionally, loose cables would likely affect all SATA ports or cause intermittent detection, not permanently disable exactly two specific ports.
Distractor review
The motherboard requires a BIOS update to support NVMe drives
The B550 chipset natively supports NVMe drives. The system boots from the NVMe drive, so a BIOS update is not needed for basic compatibility.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: NAT rules depend on direction and matching traffic
NAT is not only about the public address. The inside/outside interface roles and the ACL or rule that matches traffic are just as important.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
NAT questions usually test address translation, overload/PAT behaviour, static mappings and whether the right traffic is being translated. Read the interface direction and address terms carefully.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
- PAT allows many inside hosts to share one public address using ports.
- Inside local and inside global describe the private and translated addresses.
- NAT ACLs identify traffic for translation, not always security filtering.
TExam Day Tips
- Identify inside and outside interfaces first.
- Check whether the scenario needs static NAT, dynamic NAT or PAT.
- Do not confuse NAT matching ACLs with normal packet-filtering intent.
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More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A user reports intermittent network connectivity on a desktop computer. The technician observes that the Ethernet link light on the NIC turns off for a few seconds and then turns back on. The cable passes a wiremap test, the switch port is verified good with another device, and the NIC driver is updated. The issue occurs more frequently when the computer's case fan runs at high speed. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?
Question 2
A workstation is unable to connect to the internet. The technician runs the 'ipconfig' command and sees the IPv4 address is 169.254.15.200 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0. The workstation can ping other devices on the local subnet but cannot ping the default gateway or any external addresses. Which TWO actions should the technician take to resolve this issue? (Select two.)
Question 3
A workstation is connected to a managed switch. It obtains a valid IP address (192.168.10.50) from the DHCP server, but it cannot ping the default gateway (192.168.10.1). The link light on both the workstation NIC and the switch port are solid green. Other workstations on the same switch CAN ping the default gateway successfully. The technician accesses the switch management interface and finds that the workstation's port is configured as an access port on VLAN 10. The default gateway is located on VLAN 20. An inter-VLAN router is configured but not explicitly allowing VLAN 10 access to VLAN 20. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the problem?
Question 4
A company develops a web application that relies on a custom library available only for a specific Linux distribution. They want to deploy the application in the cloud with minimal administrative overhead, but they need full control over the software stack, including the ability to install the custom library and configure the web server. Which cloud service model BEST meets these requirements?
Question 5
A company has a legacy virtual machine running on a deprecated hypervisor (Hyper-V). They want to migrate this VM to a new hypervisor (VMware vSphere) hosted in a private cloud while preserving the VM's configuration, installed applications, and data. The migration must be performed with minimal downtime. Which of the following methods is MOST appropriate?
Question 6
A company hosts a critical database on a virtual machine in a public cloud. The database requires persistent storage that must be retained even if the VM is terminated. The storage must also be accessible from multiple VMs simultaneously for a future high-availability configuration. Which type of cloud storage BEST meets these requirements?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this 220-1101 question test?
Static NAT maps one inside address to one outside address.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The M.2 slot shares bandwidth with SATA ports, causing some SATA ports to be disabled — On many B550 motherboards, the M.2_1 slot shares PCIe lanes with specific SATA ports. When an M.2 SSD is installed in the primary M.2 slot, some SATA ports are disabled because the chipset reallocates lanes. This is a documented hardware limitation in the motherboard's manual. The technician should move the SATA drives to other available SATA ports or consult the manual for the specific port mapping.
What should I do if I get this 220-1101 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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