It is detected as a 8 GB card by the motherboards BIOS? What motherboard/system are you using?

No. The BIOS always detects the cards with correct sizes. But EZ-Drive always sees them as 8Gb. My apologies, I should have mentioned that. Corrected. 😀

It's a custom built system. Motherboard is Asus SP97-V, with a patched BIOS that supports up to 128GB drives.

I have used these adapters with a variation of CF cards, but have not had this problem. It could be bad luck though.

I would try to go back to basic and grab a DOS 6.22 install disk and use FDISK to re-do all partitions and use FORMAT on the disk, to rule out any software problems.

You don't actually need EZ-Drive with the patched BIOS right?

I often see the recommendation to use FDISK /MBR when experiencing issues with CF cards, but that mostly has to do with booting.

No, I don't need EZ-Drive. 😀 But I tend to use it, because I think it's simple and fast. I disable the EZ BIOS (or whatever it's called..?) after the partitioning. FDISK? Sure, so I just tried good old FDISK from the 6.22 install disks (also did an /MBR). Like GDISK, it reports no errors while "creating" the partition, but no partitions are actually created. So, yeah..

Here's a funny thing.. I put the card in my normal modern computer. And sure enough, no partitions were ever created. I then created a FAT16 partition, and formatted it. It then appeared fine, and read and write worked. So, the card is working. Then I put it back in the DOS machine, and it couldn't see the partition I just created. It saw the card as not being partitioned at all.

It's highly likely, my CF adapter is faulty.. 😒 I just ordered another one - this time from a local store, instead of China. 😀 I also ordered a cheap SLC CF card, just to see it that works on the first adapter. Because I googled the specs on both the 2GB and the 512Mb card, and they are both MLC. Not sure if that is a problem, but I'll find out. 😀

Let us know if that fixes the problem. Did you try another cable also? Googling finds so many suggestions. 80 lead cables are mentioned as a source of trouble also.

It can't be a cable problem, as the adapter plugs directly into the IDE port. 😀 Yes, I will follow up on this. And thank you for all your suggestions. 😉

I have had CF/IDE adapters go bad before, in fact I have one on my desk right now. I don't know exactly how it happens because they have almost no active components on them, but they do. When that happens I shrug and buy another one. They're cheap enough.

Okay, reporting back.. I got the new adapter today. That did the trick! I used GDISK to partition, and then set up DOS 6.22 with no problems at all. So, most likely a bad (or picky?) unit I had. Like I mentioned earlier, I will try the SLC CF card in the old adapter, when I get it. I don't expect it to work, but why not try it.. 😀

stamasd wrote:

I have had CF/IDE adapters go bad before, in fact I have one on my desk right now. I don't know exactly how it happens because they have almost no active components on them, but they do. When that happens I shrug and buy another one. They're cheap enough.

If the new adapter should go bad one day, I think I will follow your example. In fact, I may even order 2 or 3 at that time.. 🤣