Just bumping this - still having no luck.

The compact flash boots fine in two other machines, but gives an I/O error in the machine I actually want to use it on.

The same machine boots fine from a regular hard drive.

I have tried the CF card on both the primary and secondary IDE channel with the same result.

I know some CF cards don't play nice as hard drives, but in this case I know that this particular card works fine in at least two machines.

Are there any characteristics of CF cards that might make one compatible with only certain machines?

I'm sorry, there's not enough information to help you.
The problem could be anything.. 🙁

What kind of mainboard is it ? The page I found has little information about it.
Also what kind of CF card is it (brand, type I/II, 3.v3v/5v, etc) ?

Best regards,
Jo22

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash#CF+ … ation_revisions

Here's the motherboard manual:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rc … oPeLIZpCHuleBXE

The CF card is an RCA branded one, which means it could have been manufactured by pretty much anyone I guess.

I got it with a digital camera I bought on eBay about ten years ago.

It's 32MB and I don't know the voltage - I just left my adapter set at the default, which is 5v and it works fine in the two other machines I tried it on, so I left it like that.

The other jumper is for master/slave, which I left set to master.

This might be stupid, i hade the same problem on one of my machines, but it seemd to be becouse of the cpu. i changed to another cpu and i worked fine, unsure if i have done wrong cpu config.

Start over with fdisk /mbr, partitioning and formatting the CF on the machine you actually want to use it.

One question: the cf parameters that the bios detect is the same across the working and non working machines?

Random theory: Could be the PSU, I know that memory cards/compact flash are really sensitive to incorrect voltages.

I always run into issues where the geometry is not detected the same across machines when I try to swap them. Agree- wipe the CF (completely) and fdisk/format/sys on the actual machine you are working with.

Occasionally they are stubborn and this won't produce working system either with some CF cards.

Thanks for the tips everyone - I'll try reformatting on the actual machine and report back.

If this works, I hope the card still works in the other machines.
I'm hoping to use this card as a way to transfer files from other machines.