Try manually configuring the disk parameters in the BIOS. For the SE440BX-2 board I own, if I use any consumer-grade (I haven't used industrial) Compact Flash greater than 8GB, I have to manually set disk detection to "manual" and LBA to "enabled." Then I can partition the disk, but I then have to "disable" LBA in the BIOS while still leaving disk detection to "manual" once partitioning is finished.

Try also a fdisk /mbr. This card works for sure with the CF Lite.

Thanks, I tried that, to no avail. Maybe I’ll try with Win10 and Diskpart.

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-09, 14:23:

Try manually configuring the disk parameters in the BIOS. For the SE440BX-2 board I own, if I use any consumer-grade (I haven't used industrial) Compact Flash greater than 8GB, I have to manually set disk detection to "manual" and LBA to "enabled." Then I can partition the disk, but I then have to "disable" LBA in the BIOS while still leaving disk detection to "manual" once partitioning is finished.

Is it possible to access the XT-IDE bios somehow? The Schneider EuroPCs own bios is very limited regarding hard drive configuration.

If you have an OSX x86, I highly recommend getting virtualbox to attach the CF in “raw mode” so you can attach it to a VM as a physical disk. Then attach a Windows 98 boot Floppy image so the VM boots from that, and of course that includes FDISK and format for partitioning. I do all my imaging and prep these days on my OSX iMac 2011 using this.

RetroBard wrote on 2022-04-09, 15:21:

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-09, 14:23:

Try manually configuring the disk parameters in the BIOS. For the SE440BX-2 board I own, if I use any consumer-grade (I haven't used industrial) Compact Flash greater than 8GB, I have to manually set disk detection to "manual" and LBA to "enabled." Then I can partition the disk, but I then have to "disable" LBA in the BIOS while still leaving disk detection to "manual" once partitioning is finished.

Is it possible to access the XT-IDE bios somehow? The Schneider EuroPCs own bios is very limited regarding hard drive configuration.

Thought that is what the XTIDECFG.COM was for, it has sub menu's for reading/changing/etc settings in the EEPROM iirc

RetroBard wrote on 2022-04-09, 15:21:

Is it possible to access the XT-IDE bios somehow? The Schneider EuroPCs own bios is very limited regarding hard drive configuration.

I don't know what's wrong but you shouldn't need to, adding to my previous post "the CF Lite with this card is confirmed to work on a EuroPC". With the HDD set to none in the EuroPC BIOS of course. Just to make sure, the card is recognized by the XT-IDE and only fails fdisk right?

Yes, the XT-IDE recognizes the card and only Fdisk fails.

For what it’s worth I had to use a Cisco 256MB card with a XT-IDE adapter on a Olivetti M240 because anything larger than that, or from other brands, would not work properly. Not exactly the same symptom as your case, but the PC would hang when installing DOS, always when getting to 98%.

Also had some troubles with card compatibility on a Schneider 386SX.

If you have the means, it would be a good idea to try different cards.

I recently had an issue where while my BIOS detected my 4GB CF card, attempting to create partitions in FDISK would freeze.

This was on an ASUS VL/I-486SV2GX4 based 486 build.

As it turned out it was the BIOS. I needed to update it so that it allowed LBA support. Now, it does not freeze and FDISK creates primary, extended and logical partitions on the 4GB CF card just fine.

Maybe or maybe not your issue, but in generally typically if FDISK is "freezing" it means the computer is not recognizing the HDD media properly. I have to mention I never use those "133" CF cards either. Those are UDMA MODE 6 cards and not very compatible with older hardware. Only use PIO cards. I bet if anything that is your issue.

I figured that might be the case. It’s getting harder to get small capacity and PIO cards locally. I need to go eBay for those. I guess I’ll keep just using the microdrive until I can get a replacement.

RetroBard wrote on 2022-04-11, 04:28:

I figured that might be the case. It’s getting harder to get small capacity and PIO cards locally. I need to go eBay for those. I guess I’ll keep just using the microdrive until I can get a replacement.

I have purchased a few (three in the past week) Verbatim 4GB PIO cards on Amazon new for $12 and change. I don't know where they got em, but they work great with my 486 using the StarTech IDE to CF adapter 😉

They even have the 2GB version still available:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009967Y/ … 00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Someone in those reviews actually calls out using it with the XT-IDE, so I think you should be good to go with this for $12 😀

You might try FDISK from FreeDOS. I’ve found it to be more forgiving, reliable, useful etc than the old MS-DOS FDISK. It even lets you create multiple primary partitions.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-04-11, 04:50:

You might try FDISK from FreeDOS. I’ve found it to be more forgiving, reliable, useful etc than the old MS-DOS FDISK. It even lets you create multiple primary partitions.

Even if he is able to make it partition there it is still going to have issues (software corruption) in the host system. It is because it is a UDMA card. He needs a proper card that is more compatible with PATA.

Does the CF adapter in question sport DMA data lines, at all ?
Because, the lower end versions that I do own don't.
They're fine for DOS and PIO 0 to 3, but not so much for Windows 9x (has DMA option in Device Manager).

PS: Be careful with PIO4. It used to have reliability issues.

Same issue in a P4 board, I had to disable DMA in BIOS.

I bought a 512 MB Sandisk card from ebay. I’ve had a pretty good track record with Sandisk cards, so let’s see how it goes with this one, when it arrives.

RetroBard wrote on 2022-04-12, 18:17:

I bought a 512 MB Sandisk card from ebay. I’ve had a pretty good track record with Sandisk cards, so let’s see how it goes with this one, when it arrives.

I have a bunch of these. It'll work fine. I do however like the vast storage (well, vast in DOS!) of the 4GB cards. And, they are new!

I received the Sandisk 512 MB CF today. FDisk worked all right and I was able to format it and install MS-DOS 5.0 on it. It boots nice and quiet and I gather it’ll be more reliable than the microdrive.