So you just typed some random numbers for geometry?
My suggestion is to use some utility like IDEINFO and see what geometry it reports.
And just to rule out master/slave issues with the adapter until you have everything setup you might want to work with the CF as a single/master HDD in the system.
Also, if you haven't already, do an fdisk /mbr with the card as single/master (boot from a floppy with the mechanical HDD disconnected).

Can't it be a 3.3V vs 5V thing? I vaguely remember my adapter coming configured on 3.3V (despite 5V being labeled ad default on the adapter) and having similar issues before realising this. In my case it would see the CF card but any write operation would fail.

konc wrote on 2024-04-16, 09:39:

So you just typed some random numbers for geometry?

Not exactly random, I used those people recommended to achieve 512 or 256MB sizes. It was said that the numbers should not matter much as long as the final size is right. After all there is no such thing with the CF. But maybe it meant only cylinders. I have downloaded both IDEDiag and WhatIDE and will try to get those tell me the details.
As for MBR, I did not do that because its a secondary drive and the suggester "FDISK /CMBR [drivenum]" did not work, reported CMBR as an invalid parameter. Or maybe the C there was a typo..?
I tried the CF as the only master there and it would not boot, but maybe that was before I find some of the right values so will try again.
Also I dont want it bootable, just to move around data, do I still need to worry about MBR then?

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-04-16, 10:34:

Can't it be a 3.3V vs 5V thing? I vaguely remember my adapter coming configured on 3.3V (despite 5V being labeled ad default on the adapter) and having similar issues before realising this. In my case it would see the CF card but any write operation would fail.

Frankly I have no idea, but this is about the simplest chinese adapter, there is only one switch Master/Slave, an IDE socket and a floppy drive power socket. It does not even allow power to come from IDE like some do. So I take it its 5V like the floppy? Googled now that floppies use 5V and 12V.

This is the CF2IDE I have:

WhiteFalcon wrote on 2024-04-16, 11:23:

konc wrote on 2024-04-16, 09:39:

So you just typed some random numbers for geometry?

As for MBR, I did not do that because its a secondary drive and the suggester "FDISK /CMBR [drivenum]" did not work, reported CMBR as an invalid parameter. Or maybe the C there was a typo..?
I tried the CF as the only master there and it would not boot, but maybe that was before I find some of the right values so will try again.

Yes, before doing anything else start with fdisk /mbr on the card. Just /mbr as long as the card is single on the IDE channel. Then delete everything and re-partition. I'm not saying that this will solve your issues, but it doesn't make sense to try anything else before ensuring this.

konc: Ok, thank you, I will try that then.

Can you connect this CF2IDE (again) with this particular card to your P75 computer and detect card from BIOS ?
Unfortunately 8GB limit may apply to P75 as well 🙁

Is this (486) one of those custom OEM systems (HP, Dell, etc.) or motherboard is from "good known" brand ? 😉
If the latter - there is a chance that you may find newer BIOS for it (or MrBIOS for your chipset).

BTW. I'm using 4GB compact flash card with my Intel 420EX Ninja Board with 'Extended CHS' settings - as CHS and LBA are not working.
However, the card I am using (Sandisk SDCFX3-409) is detected by my board's BIOS.

I don't think this is a 3.3V issue. That CF adapter doesn't do 3.3V and it is unlikely that this CF requires 3.3V, but I don't see the CF make & model posted in the thread so I can't be sure. Can you post some info about the CF?

Trying to run a CF in a master/slave configuration can be a difficult challenge. I wouldn't do it for fun. If I was doing it just for the challenge of doing it, I would thoroughly test each drive separately on the target computer first, and make sure that I know how to configure each one to work individually, before setting the jumpers to Master & Slave & combining them on a single cable. Even if the drives work individually and each drive has worked in a master/slave configuration in the past, it's not assured that the two drives will get along together. My rule of thumb is that the closer together the manufacture date of the storage devices, the more likely that they will get along together. But if you want to combine a hard drive with 1993 firmware and a CF with 2015 firmware? Ehhh .... I guess it could work, right? But it probably wasn't a configuration that the vendors tested.

That 1993 Motherboard BIOS is likely going to up the difficulty here because it seems unlikely that it will be able auto detect the correct drive geometry or do LBA. Consider adding an XTIde Universal BIOS option ROM and let it autodetect your devices. If you can't do that, consider configuring the BIOS size for the drives to "type 1 - 10MB" and then installing EZ Drive. http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=19 It will wipe your drives though.

zyga64 wrote on 2024-04-16, 11:51:

Can you connect this CF2IDE (again) with this particular card to your P75 computer and detect card from BIOS ?
Unfortunately 8GB limit may apply to P75 as well 🙁

I dont have the P75 around, it would take some logistics so will try that when everything else fails.

Its just a generic build I guess, not branded. If you dont mind browsing through a non-English webpage, its ehis one (the specs are at the bottom of the auction page):
https://aukro.cz/krasny-pc-z-poloviny-90-let- … 6dx2-7041844924

Lucky you, I tried autodetect D: in the BIOS (it has separate detection for C: and D:) and it just hangs there.

douglar wrote on 2024-04-16, 13:11:

I don't think this is a 3.3V issue. That CF adapter doesn't do 3.3V and it is unlikely that this CF requires 3.3V, but I don't see the CF make & model posted in the thread so I can't be sure. Can you post some info about the CF?

Nothing more to post about it, its not branded, its a generic chinese adapter from Aliexpress. There is nothing interesting on the other side so I posted just the upper side.
Unfortunatelly I have no other choice, the PC only has one IDE channel. I thought about gettin another IDE interface card, but have not found any around and they can get rather expensive. Which is why I was happy with the fact I can move the CD-ROM over to the SB16.
Understood, the 256MB CF I have on the way to me is a Sandisk and I assume it will be a bit older than the 16GB I have now. I will read on EZ Drive, thank you. Not sure about XTIde, I think you need a network card for that? Have none around. But I am going to try the two tools on the PC itself to learn the geometry details.

WhiteFalcon wrote on 2024-04-16, 13:28:

Understood, the 256MB CF I have on the way to me is a Sandisk and I assume it will be a bit older than the 16GB I have now. I will read on EZ Drive, thank you. Not sure about XTIde, I think you need a network card for that? Have none around. But I am going to try the two tools on the PC itself to learn the geometry details.

OK. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Guessing at the drive geometry can work, but it can also sometimes only sort of works. For example, I have a couple "512MB" generic CFs. Most are 504MB, but there's one that's only 480MB. If I leave the drive 504MB geometry in place and try to access the smaller device, it mostly works until I access past 480MB and then the errors happen.

You should be able to view the true device CHS geometry for a CF device if you generate a system report from speedsys and look at the text file.
You could also try HWiNFO support of vintage hardware

XUB ( https://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/ ) requires an ISA option rom socket. The cheapest way to get that is with a network card, but there are dedicated 8 bit option rom holder too.
Mini ISA ROM Card
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/product/isa-rom-board-pcb/

I have connected it as a master now, all alone in there, without changing the BIOS, so the settings for the original 250MB HDD are stil in place.
Booted from a floppy with WhatIDE and IDEDIAG and both report about the same info. To not spam it here with too many photos, just a link to three photos:

https://imgur.com/a/Ue2clE0

As you can see, too many cylinders to even enter in the BIOS I believe, will hopefully have better luck with the 256MB card when it arrives. But anyway,
I booted from the 1st MS-DOS 6.22 floppy, the setup did find and format the CF and is installing DOS from the 2nd floppy. So far it reported one error "cannot write to drive",
but after trying again, its going on from the 3rd floppy. Its probably caused by the floppies, they are originally Microsoft FoxPro installation disks that I used for
MS-DOS installation.

douglar: Interesting, I would expect every CF card of the same capacity to BE the same capacity exactly, but there is a pparently room for differences.
I just posted thre geometry results from two recommended utilites. I might have a network card at the cottage somewhere, but will get there in a few months.
So I am hoping it wont be necessary.

So after another error on disk #3, DOS is installed and it booted up from the CF! FDISK reports 258MB which is exactly the size of the original HDD, so its taking that from BIOS. I am hesitant to change the values for C: in BIOS as I will need that to put the HDD back as C:, but will take a photo so it should be okay. Need it to work as a slave drive though.

Ok so it works fine as master and the only drive. I found out that the BIOS actually supports LBA, it was just disabled. So now it ever detects the CF as 16GB in BIOS! But no matter what, when its on the same cable as the hdd, it wont boot, unless I choose D: as not installed in BIOS. And then FDISK doesnt see it. So I will try again once the 256MB CF arrives. It seems I wont be able to have both a CF and HDD in at the same time 🙁

WhiteFalcon wrote on 2024-04-16, 14:26:

douglar: Interesting, I would expect every CF card of the same capacity to BE the same capacity exactly, but there is a pparently room for differences.

Sometimes it's not just minor differences. Sometimes is major differences, like completely different controller, firmware and flash layout. Even major brands sometimes just slap their label on the outsourcing contract de jour.

WhiteFalcon wrote on 2024-04-16, 15:33:

Ok so it works fine as master and the only drive. I found out that the BIOS actually supports LBA, it was just disabled. So now it ever detects the CF as 16GB in BIOS! But no matter what, when its on the same cable as the hdd, it wont boot, unless I choose D: as not installed in BIOS. And then FDISK doesnt see it. So I will try again once the 256MB CF arrives. It seems I wont be able to have both a CF and HDD in at the same time 🙁

Unless you are using DOS 7.1 (aka Win95b or newer) you will likely have a hard time using drives larger than 8.4 GB.

Did you try removing the master/slave jumper on your CF adapter? Did you try using a blue 80 conductor IDE cable that supports cable select, putting the blue block on the mobo, the grey block on the slave, and the black block on the master?

Motherboard from auction site looks like Shuttle HOT-419: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/shuttl … hot-419-ver.1.1
TheRetroWeb provides BIOS image for it, so there a chance that it is newer than yours (note inside archive says: "5/96 - Latest AMI-Bios 419AIP06.BIN for HOT419DZ")

There is also MrBIOS for Jetway J-403TG, which is based on the same chipset (OPTI 82C895): https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/jetway … 403tg-v2.0#bios
So if you have access to flash/eprom burner and spare W27C512-45 chip - you can find out for yourself if it makes any difference 😀

douglar wrote on 2024-04-16, 16:58:

Unless you are using DOS 7.1 (aka Win95b or newer) you will likely have a hard time using drives larger than 8.4 GB.

Did you try removing the master/slave jumper on your CF adapter? Did you try using a blue 80 conductor IDE cable that supports cable select, putting the blue block on the mobo, the grey block on the slave, and the black block on the master?

I thought the capacity did not matter as long as I only used it as a 512MB or 256MB drive, I would be okay with that. But if it does matter, the incoming 256MB one could make a difference, and a colleague at work promised to lend me a 128MB one to test too.

Yes, I tried all possible combinations with/without the jumper, on both ends of the cable, even with moving the jumper on the HDD (which is curiously not on the back as usual, but on the bottom of the drive). No, I had trouble finding the 40 conductors ones 😉 I think I might have an 80 one too somewhere, will check. Had no idea you can use these newer ones in old PCs.