AST RESEARCH, INC.         TECHNICAL BULLETIN #0870               09-22-93




      FORMATTING AND PARTITIONING HARD DISKS CONNECTED TO POWER STATION


PROBLEM:       AST DOS 5.0 and IBM DOS 5.0 will not allow FDISK to see more
               than one hard disk when the Power Exec is connected to the
               Power Station.

CAUSE:         AST DOS 5.0 and IBM DOS 5.0 rely on CMOS to identify hard
               disks, and there is no CMOS for the Power Station.

AFFECTED
SYSTEMS:       PowerExec and Power Stations.

SOLUTION:      Microsoft DOS 5.0 or 6.0 use BIOS calls to identify hard disks
               and will allow the hard drive to be partitioned and formatted