ISC2 CC Business Continuity, DR & Incident Response Practice Question
During a disaster recovery test, the team discovers that the backup generator fails to start. What is the BEST immediate action?
⚠ Common exam trap
ISC2 often tests the misconception that any hardware failure during a DR test automatically invalidates the entire test, tempting candidates to choose 'Cancel the test' (Option B) instead of recognizing that documentation and continuation preserve the test's value for other critical components.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Document the issue and proceed
The immediate priority during a disaster recovery test is to document the failure and continue the test to evaluate the remaining components of the DR plan. The backup generator failure is a specific issue that should be logged for post-test remediation, but aborting the test prematurely would lose valuable data on other failover mechanisms, such as UPS runtime, network redundancy, or application recovery. Proceeding with documentation ensures the test's integrity while capturing the incident for root cause analysis.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Continue the test with manual procedures
Why it's wrong here
While possible, it is better to document the failure first.
- ✗
Cancel the test
Why it's wrong here
Canceling loses the opportunity to test other components.
- ✓
Document the issue and proceed
Why this is correct
During a disaster recovery test, the immediate priority is to comprehensively identify all weaknesses within the recovery plan, not to fix issues as they arise. Documenting the generator failure and continuing the test allows the team to uncover further potential problems downstream that might be masked or missed if the test were halted. This approach ensures a complete assessment of the entire disaster recovery process, satisfying the diagnostic objective of a test scenario.
- ✗
Shut down the data center
Why it's wrong here
Shutting down is unnecessary and could cause more disruption.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Network Security Foundations
Key term
Integrity
Integrity is the assurance that data has not been altered or tampered with in an unauthorized way, preserving its accuracy and consistency from source to destination.
Key term
Root cause analysis
Root cause analysis is a systematic process used to identify the fundamental underlying cause of a problem, rather than just treating its symptoms.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CC practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISC2 certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CC exam.