Hamby wrote on 2022-08-26, 00:33:

I'd like to stick an IDE2SD adapter into a vintage (150mhz Compaq; from 1997, I believe) notebook, but I'm not sure whether I ne […]
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I'd like to stick an IDE2SD adapter into a vintage (150mhz Compaq; from 1997, I believe) notebook, but I'm not sure whether I need 44 pin or 40 pin. As opening the notebook to install the adapter is a little bit (not a lot) involved, I'd like to only have to open it the one time to install the adapter.

Does anyone have any advice on what to look for? I've looked on amazon, but would rather buy one from ebay because most vendors on ebay will ship usps, who won't leave it at my doorstep for the neighbors to have.

I've already gotten some IDE2CF adapters, and had good results with older hardware, but I would like to go SD on this one because SD is still readily available in various capacities and is generally cheaper.

I was thinking of getting a 32gb card, partitioning it into 2 fat16 2gb partitions, a 4gb fat32 partition and an 8gb linux partition, leaving the rest empty for load-balancing.
(I want to multiboot DOS 6.22 with Desqview/X, Win98se, and an early Linux distro, probably Mandrake or Red Hat).

Would this be a good or a bad idea?

It is almost certainly a 44-pin IDE drive .

These threads chronicle some of my opinions and experiences on the matter (and also those of other people) . Of particular interest, if you plan to have FAT16 partitions on an adapter based on the FC1307 chip (or a relabeled variant), is the third thread as caveats and workarounds related to that scenario are described.

Here's an idea: using high endurance (micro)SD cards meant for continuous video recording as storage for retro gear .
Are there any utilities available to test BIOS disk access routines for reliable LBA28 functionality ?
Re: Using a vintage multi-track recorder as a mixer, namely the Roland VS-880EX - might apply to other Roland VS- units