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    AST RESEARCH, INC.           TECHNICAL BULLETIN # 1013                11-14-94

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            THIRD FLOPPY SUPPORT ON AST PREMIUM SE SYSTEMS WITH DOS 6.X OR HIGHER

    PROBLEM:        The ASTDSK.DRV or DRIVER.SYS third floppy disk driver does not
                    work with DOS version 6.x or higher.  When using either of
                    these drivers, the following error message occurs:

                         Sector not found reading drive x: Abort? Retry? Fail?

                    where x is the logical drive in question.

    CAUSE:          The driver provided by AST (ASTDSK.DRV) was written
                    specifically for DOS 5.x and is not supported by DOS 6.x.
                    The Microsoft driver (DRIVER.SYS) that ships with DOS 6.x is
                    not compatible with AST's Premium SE 1.5 floppy interface.

    SYSTEMS
    AFFECTED:           AST
                    PART NUMBER          DESCRIPTION

                    500887-XXX      PREMIUM SE 486DX/33
                    500888-XXX      PREMIUM SE 486DX/50
                    500998-XXX      PREMIUM SE 486DX-2/50
                    500999-XXX      PREMIUM SE 486DX-2/66
                    500889-XXX      PREMIUM XP CABINET

    SOLUTION:       Use DOS version 5.x.  No additional software release will be
                    made available.