There is no such thing as CF2IDE adapter, because CF pretty much _is_ IDE. What you are "converting" is just connectors. So the adapter is passive device - just a bunch of pins and eventually few leds just for signaling activity and maybe some simple voltage stabilization circuit. So I doubt it died. I would rather take a closer look at the card itself. Try it in another machine, and try another card in this machine...

PS: Have you flipped the card to a HDD device instead of removable? ( Best CF card in "Fixed Disk"? ) - I doubt it will help, but it should be done for cards used this way anyway...

Well, I put an 8GB Transcend CF card in and the machine booted off the floppy.
So then I put it in my CF card reader on my win7 desktop and ran Bootit to set the fixed bit.
Then I did the same for the 32GB SanDisk.
I then formatted both cards under Win7 (Fat32).
I put the 8GB back in, ran FDISK to partition it into one 2GB and one 6GB partition (and just realized I didn't tell it to format the 2GB partition FAT. argh).
I reinstalled my network adapter and Awe32, breaking the memory retaining pins in the process 🙁
Right now it's installing Win98 onto the hard drive.
If this all works, I'll try installing onto the 32GB drive.

What DOS programs are likely to need FAT rather than FAT32 support on the HD anyway?

Hamby wrote:

What DOS programs are likely to need FAT rather than FAT32 support on the HD anyway?

Filesystem is handled by operating system. Unless you deal with filesystem editing tools (formatting, partitioning and so on or operating system itself) it's pretty much transparent to the software (at least as long as filesystem is compatible with what they expect - i.e. certain file name format, file attributes and so on - but FAT32 is backwards compatible with FAT16).

My solution for CF cards is:
a) Flip the fixed drive bit (in Win10).
b) Boot from floppy
c) whatide.com
d) Configure BIOS with parameters from whatide.com unless XT-IDE is required (for example my Philips P3348SX won't boot even if BIOS is set properly, but it works perfectly fine with XT-IDE)
e) Reboot and boot from floppy again
f) Create partitions under target operating system
g) Reboot and boot from floppy again
h) fdisk /mbr (if CF card will be a boot drive)
i) format c: /s (or format c: and then sys a: c:)

I use them in older machines (286, 386SX and everything works fine).

PS: Memory module retaining pins on AWE32 are notorious for breaking - fortunatelly those slanted slots are still available brand new, so you can replace them.

So I was able to partition and install Win98 on the 8GB CF card.
But the computer hangs whenever I put the 32GB card in (it used to start just fine with the card inserted; I almost had Win98 installed on it).

I pull the 32GB card, and it leaves the Speedeasy logo of the bios setup (which I can re-enter at any time using the del key... it's not locked up).

but with the 32GB card in... it just sits there.

The 32GB card is readable by my win7 and linux computers. I can't figure out why it makes the K6-2 machine hang.

Thanks for the info on the slanted memory slots. I'll have to find a source for them and eventually fix the Awe32.

Hamby wrote:

So I was able to partition and install Win98 on the 8GB CF card. But the computer hangs whenever I put the 32GB card in (it used […]
Show full quote

So I was able to partition and install Win98 on the 8GB CF card.
But the computer hangs whenever I put the 32GB card in (it used to start just fine with the card inserted; I almost had Win98 installed on it).

I pull the 32GB card, and it leaves the Speedeasy logo of the bios setup (which I can re-enter at any time using the del key... it's not locked up).

but with the 32GB card in... it just sits there.

The 32GB card is readable by my win7 and linux computers. I can't figure out why it makes the K6-2 machine hang.

Thanks for the info on the slanted memory slots. I'll have to find a source for them and eventually fix the Awe32.

By being readable by Win7 and Linux computers - I guess you are referring to reading it using some sort of USB adapter (bridge)? Right? Then that's different thing and has nothing to do with CF card working as IDE device (where it's directly connected to the IDE controller).

It may be that the card is just not compatible with the IDE controller you have on this board. I would try different card or try it on the different motherboard (using the IDE adapter).
Also some cards don't really like sharing the BUS (IDE channel) with other devices and also more recent CF UDMA7 cards - CFast (which yours probably is) will usually cause trouble in passive adapters (although this applies to earlier CF+ UDMA cards too).
If you really need such big solid state drive why not use SATA-IDE adapter and some scrap-heep older SSD anyway?

PS: Slanted SIMM30 sockets - google WS3130APRRC

When I couldn't get the fixed-bit to set on the 8GB card, I searched for a UDMA card, as I'd read that those can boot.
I'll try putting the CDROM on the 2nd IDE channel and see what happens.
It just seems odd that the drive worked for awhile (although it did appear to have problems.. hm.)

Hamby wrote:

When I couldn't get the fixed-bit to set on the 8GB card, I searched for a UDMA card, as I'd read that those can boot.
I'll try putting the CDROM on the 2nd IDE channel and see what happens.
It just seems odd that the drive worked for awhile (although it did appear to have problems.. hm.)

Yes, but they frequently have problem in the passive adapters like I said earlier...

I didn't had any problems with computers not booting from non-UDMA cards (other than in my Philips 386SX which started to work flawlessly when I added XT-IDE). IMO K6-2 systems are too modern to bother using CF cards anyway - still plenty 20/40/80GB IDE HDDs around (which are perfect for period correct builds) and you can easly throws something much bigger as well). It will be much cheaper than big CF card too. And when it comes to data transfer - ethernet card, wireless card or USB stick solves the problem...

I have one of those adapters. It maybe not the adapter but yor CF card. There is a difference between a ATA CF card and a CF card that is for cameras. I know that sounds silly but its true. A CF card that is for cameras will report its self as a removable device even if its connected to a IDE bus. Where as a ATA CF card will act as if it is a Hard drive. you should look for a utility called ATCFWCHG.COM that will convert your sandisk to a fixed disk instead of it reporting itself incorrectly. I am not responsible for incorrect use of that tool. At own risk.

Last you should not be using Fdisk or Format from win 98 or any other thing like that to prepare a flash drive for use. Use Gparted live CD so you can properly Align the partition to MiB