Customers using 604e systems running at speeds exceeding 180Mhz may see problems erasing or formatting floppies. Systems affected include the PowerTower and PowerTower Pro systems. Symptoms include error messages that an initialization failed or that a disk could not be erased because of disk errors. Customers may also notice that 1.44 MB disks that were formatted after the clean install show up as having only 1 MB of space.
These issues have been resolved with the PowerMac Format Patch, an extension that ships standard with all Power Computing systems. Even though this extension was written by Apple, it does not get installed with the standard system software installer. Therefore, if a customer does a clean install, the PowerMac Format Patch will have to be manually reinstalled to ensure compatibility with floppy disks. There is a copy of the PowerMac Format Patch on the PowerCD (Part #6010-1009-00) located in the Extensions folder in the Draggable System Folder.
In earlier systems, the Floppy Tuner (which was written by Power Computing) was installed as a temporary workaround until the Apple extension was made available. For customers with the older CD (part #75609), the extension is also located in the Draggable System folder.
Machines Affected: PowerTower 604e, PowerTower Pro systems
Article Change History:
* Written by Chris Heatherly (9/4/96)
* Modified by Nigel Prentice to update info about PowerMac Format Patch (11/26/96)