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    AST RESEARCH, INC.            TECHNICAL BULLETIN # 0956                 8-8-94

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                            ASCENTIA 900N SMARTSLEEP PARTITION SIZE

    PROBLEM:        Running FDISK will show in addition to the primary DOS
                    partition, that there is a 34 MB non-DOS partition.

    CAUSE:          The partition was created using the AST ZDISK utility.  The
                    SmartSleep partition size is now pre-set at the factory to the
                    maximum size of 34 MB.  This allows the user to upgrade memory
                    size to 32 MB without reformatting the disk.

    SYSTEMS
    AFFECTED:           AST                                              REVISION
                    PART NUMBER             DESCRIPTION                    LEVEL

                    501299-2XX      ASCENTIA 900N 4/50 CS10 All
                    501300-3XX      ASCENTIA 900N 4/50 CT9  All
                    501302-2XX      ASCENTIA 900N 4/75 CS10 All
                    501304-3XX      ASCENTIA 900N 4/75 CT10 All

    SOLUTION:       If the user has no intention of running SmartSleep and wants
                    to use the 34 MB of disk space, it will be necessary to delete
                    both partitions (i.e. primary-DOS and non-DOS), create a new
                    partition, and reformat the drive using DOS FDISK.EXE and
                    FORMAT.COM.

                    WARNING: Be sure to back up all data before deleting the
                             partitions and reformatting the hard disk.