It looks like it's because of 504 MB BIOS limit:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

Try with a smaller CF card.

A Future Pilot wrote:

CF to IDE adapter and a Transcend 300cf 512 MB CF card. Over the course of diagnosing I removed all the other ISA cards from the computer, so now I only have a TVGA 8900C video card and the IDE/Floppy controller.

If I have the adapter set to master mode and no CF card in it, everything works fine, and I can boot from a floppy. However when I try to boot with a CF card in, I get a black screen and no beeps or anything.

With the CF adapter to set to slave mode, the computer boots fine, but it can't see the drive.

In some cabling setups, the master needs to be in the middle connector, not the far end. When set to "master" mode on that system you may need to use that middle connector, and on slave mode at the far end. Are you using a 40-wire or 80-wire cable?

As far as the 504MB BIOS limit, this SHOULD only mean that the drive will be seen as 504M no matter the real capacity. Setting 993H/16C/63S/512B should get you 488MB. Pre-configure that in the CMOS setup, save the changes, shut down, and attach the drive.

Also make sure you didn't insert the CF card upside down. Some CF IDE adapters do mechanically allow this!
If the card is inserted correctly, check the card reader for short circuits (use a magnifier glass ain a good light).

If that isn't the issue, try another card or IDE controller.
Some FDC/IDE combo cards may work better beause they don't suffer the RDY (Ready) signal issue so often.
Help getting CF card running as IDE HDD replacement
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?324 … f3b2f73286c1924

Edit: Also note the evolution of IDE. Earky 286 machines had absolutely no clue of IDE.
To them, everything was WD1003. They thead IDE disks as if they were WD1003 controller+ST412/ST506 (MFM/RLL HDD).

Edit: Give XT-IDE Universal BIOS (AT version) a try, it worked for me. It will also remove the ~500MB barrier,
so you can have multiple 2GiB paritions each (up to four are safe, if memory serves; that'll be 8GiB of total capacity)

Edit: Going period-correct and use 40pin cables for testing shhouldn't hurt, either.
You never know what quirkyness can happen with 80pin cables (even if the extra lines are merely ground). 😉

A Future Pilot wrote:

...If I have the adapter set to master mode and no CF card in it, everything works fine, and I can boot from a floppy. However when I try to boot with a CF card in, I get a black screen and no beeps or anything. Normally the TVGA bios boots before the PC bios, but with the CF card in, absolutely nothing happens...

Any problem that "normally" happens related to IDE controller/drive combo (like BIOS does not support the size/geometry of the drive, resource conflicts, master/slave mishaps, etc.) should happen during the "booting from HDD" step of the entire boot process. These kind of problems as far as I know should not result in a total loss of boot process. If you don't even see the VGA BIOS messages at the start of the boot up process, there should be something more fundementally bad in a deeper level. Like a defective part (IDE controller? Card? IDE/CF Adapter?, Cable?) or a deeper incopatibility, not just a resource conflict or a setup mishap.

A Future Pilot wrote:

...If I start booting without the card in, then attach it, the boot sequence freezes. If I then pull out the card the boot sequences continues for a bit then gives a memory address error...

Don't do this, it serves no purpose. IDE/CF adapter is not a card reader,you cannot take the card out or reinsert it while the machine is running. Normally IDE devices are not hot plug, they should be connected before powering up.

A Future Pilot wrote:

.. Do y’all have any idea what’s happening or what I might can do?

First thing I would do will be checking somehow if that 286 has BIOS level support for IDE devices. IDE controllers of the type you most probably using have generally no on board BIOS, so they depend on the system BIOS to support IDE devices. Actually did you even set your system BIOS with the correct parameters (cylinder/head/sector) for your CF card? I never seen an 286 which detects HDDs automatically. You need to define them what kind of HDD (or CF card) you have, thru BIOS setup.

The second thing I would do is testing the controller/cable/adapter/card combo in a more modern PC like a 486 or Pentium. See if it detects the card as it should be detected. This will make you sure that you have no ongoing defective hardware problems.

One other poster said that you need to use a smaller card bacuse of the 504 MB limit of the old (even later) BIOSes, this is not correct, your 512MB card is ok for this limit. But I've seen 286s in the past which have no option for "user defined" HDD parameters, so you might be dealing with another kind of "limit" problem, anyway.

If this is the case, I suggest you go for "XT-IDE in a NIC boot ROM socket" approach. It also solves any problem related to "my computer have no idea about what IDE is" kind of situations.

You can of course try to find a controller with it's own on board BIOS, but In my opinion XT-IDE approach is much more easier and satisfactory.

Jo22 wrote:

Also make sure you didn't insert the CF card upside down. Some CF IDE adapters do mechanically allow this!

Yet when jumpered as "Slave" and upside-down it's detected? No, it's not in upside-down. It won't be detected when in upside down.

Edit: Also note the evolution of IDE. Earky 286 machines had absolutely no clue of IDE.

Considering the PC-XT predates the PC-AT, it's probably safe to assume that an IDE drive will work attached to an IDE controller.

If the BIOS only lets you select from a set amount of types (instead of just going to "47/User") you may have to go through the types to find one that gives you the largest capacity. It may stick you with only allowing 17 sectors per track, with 512B per sector. Type 46 (for AMI BIOS) will be 1224/15/17/512B (152MB), depending on your BIOS the geometry for the types may be different (Phoenix gives a Type 46 as 925/9/17/512B, for a 70MB capacity).

AlaricD wrote:

Edit: Also note the evolution of IDE. Earky 286 machines had absolutely no clue of IDE.

Considering the PC-XT predates the PC-AT, it's probably safe to assume that an IDE drive will work attached to an IDE controller.

If the BIOS only lets you select from a set amount of types (instead of just going to "47/User") you may have to go through the types to find one that gives you the largest capacity. It may stick you with only allowing 17 sectors per track, with 512B per sector. Type 46 (for AMI BIOS) will be 1224/15/17/512B (152MB), depending on your BIOS the geometry for the types may be different (Phoenix gives a Type 46 as 925/9/17/512B, for a 70MB capacity).

I'm sorry, I should have been more clearly. 😢
That I meant to say is that the old PC/XT and PC/AT BIOSes pre-dated the IDE standard (they knew ST506 or SASI drives, at best).
In their time period, there only was the WD1003 controller (and it derivatives) which they supported on their own.
IDE and early AT-Bus fixed disks emulated that command set or "language", but weren't fully equal to is.
To make things worse, the later ATA specs, say ATA-3, -which CF cards adhere to- changed some behavior in detail.
I'm not good at explaining things, so please let me allow to point you to http://www.os2museum.com/wp/how-to-please-wdctrl/
My Schneider Tower AT also locked-up with a DOM installed, until installed XTIDE Universal BIOS (on an ethernet card).

Thank you all for the suggestions!

I actually purchased a new-in-box Promise EIDE board that came in last night. I hooked it all up and....same thing 😒

So I'm almost certain it's the CF Card itself, or possibly the adapter, or some combination of the two. So I just got a Disk on Module that should be in next week sometime. We'll see how that goes 🤣! I can't wait to get this thing running finally!

So the DOM came in. I plugged it up aaand...the Promise EIDE card can’t find it. So after trying it plugged in to different slots and such, I tried plugging it in backwards (so the wrong pin was attached to pin one), and now it’s doing the same thing the CF card was doing: Black screen when it’s attached. On the one hand I figured I mighta fried something on both it and the CF card (cause now that I think about it I may have initially plugged the IDE cable in backwards when connected to the CF adapter), but on the other hand, even though it didn’t cause a black screen, it still wasn’t working before I plugged it in backwards.

I also found someone else who had a similar situation: Pentium PC won't boot with IDE-FC Adapter.. Imnow trying the same thing he did, and I’ve ordered an SD card and an adapter for it.