Are you able to manually define the drive in that BIOS or no? I know on my PS/1 it just incorrectly detects the drive as 528MB and it works fine with Ontrack (switching to XT-IDE however). I don't THINK it allows me to change the parameters and manually define one, but yours is newer, so maybe it does?

No unfortunately it doesn't let me change it at all. I'm leaning towards this CF-IDE device because it is admittedly a generic version of it from what I can tell, not sure who make more reliable ones. For all I know it could be the CF card itself.

I don't have any known working IDE drives laying around I can test in it, I suppose my next step is to test the ones I do have on my Athlon and see if they can at least be formatted and written to, but like I said the smallest one is 40gb's so not sure that is going to help me if this model just refuses to see any of them.

I'm hoping someone has dealt with this specific model or close enough to it that it may be some quirk with it that they overcame themself, and can at least point me in the right direction.

I have the Startech one, but haven't tried it in my PS/1 yet, do you want me to and let you know if it works?

Yeah, absolutely if you get a spare minute and can try and see what it does, I'd be interested to see your results.

8.4GB is 16384*16*63, and 16384*16 overflows using 16-bit arithmetic, and you get zero, so that could be what is happening here.

I had the 486SX-25 version of this system about 20 years ago. I don't recall whether the drive I was using was more than 504MB or not. But there is hope for a smaller CF to work. If the above speculation is right, you could go up to about 2GB. The 2.1GB limit described here (https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html) would produce a 0MB calculation for 16384*16*63 (or anything where the bottom 12 bits of the cylinders is zero).

I just ordered a 512MB CF card and a 2GB CF card, so fingers crossed one of them does the trick. When I get a chance, I’ll check the power supply with a meter—I read somewhere, though it was pretty vague, that voltage drops or instability might stop the hard drive from starting up right, leading to a timeout and that 1780 error. That said, the drives I’ve got hooked up seem to spin up okay so far.

When I picked up this IBM, it came with a Conner CFS541A, a 540MB hard drive. The problem was, it’d spin up for a moment and then just shut down. Apparently, that’s a typical issue with these older Conner drives. If they sit unused for too long, the read/write heads—the little arms that handle the data—get stuck to a small magnet inside. That magnet’s there to keep the heads parked safely when the drive’s off, so they don’t scratch the disk. But over time, they can get permanently stuck to it, and that stops the drive from starting up properly.

I’ll share an update after I get the new CF cards, letting you know if they work or not, just in case someone else bumps into the same issue. Surely this is got to be what it is.

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-21, 23:30:

I have the Startech one, but haven't tried it in my PS/1 yet, do you want me to and let you know if it works?

Did you ever get a minute to test that Startech?

Demo wrote on 2025-02-24, 00:55:

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-21, 23:30:

I have the Startech one, but haven't tried it in my PS/1 yet, do you want me to and let you know if it works?

Did you ever get a minute to test that Startech?

I have not yet, discovered the biggest CF card I have here is 512MB, so I'm going to order a 32GB, give me a couple days, that OK?

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-21, 23:30:

I have not yet, discovered the biggest CF card I have here is 512MB, so I'm going to order a 32GB, give me a couple days, that OK?

No hurries I was just curious is all. I will probably get the ones I ordered by Wed. Looking into a PS/1 myself, I found one close by, I may pick your brain a bit if I end up with it.

Demo wrote on 2025-02-24, 01:52:

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-21, 23:30:

I have not yet, discovered the biggest CF card I have here is 512MB, so I'm going to order a 32GB, give me a couple days, that OK?

No hurries I was just curious is all. I will probably get the ones I ordered by Wed. Looking into a PS/1 myself, I found one close by, I may pick your brain a bit if I end up with it.

Sounds good!

CF cards are not exactly equal to HDDs. there's many differences even among different cards (for example, does it present itself as removable or fixed media etc).
some systems are picky about that, some not. IBM systems in my opinion are picky to any hardware you may install. May be with just another serie or branded card you will get it to be detected. Pull the lever!

If Ontrack did see the drive, and you have formated the drive. Did you everything you supposed to do ? i mean. did you follow ontrack instructions correctly ?, because ontrack is the reason to overcome the 500MB limit. I have used it in many diffferent computers/configurations and worked everythime... Be shure to use the correct ide cable. (40/80 pin) and in master, and the red pin to the right direccion.

Doesnt matter what BIOS sees.. major of times not the corect informatiom. What it matters is if it boots and asks for a operatiuon system.

Hey, sorry for the delay, the 16GB Transcend CF cards worked fine in my PS/1 using the Startech adapter:

Just to confirm , the bioses of these valuepoint series are very weird when it comes to hdds.
I have a 466dx2/tp and it took many tries to find a hard disk that would not give the bios error.
Even between exact same hdds with same fw that error would show.
Ended up using a 10gb ide HDD with ez-drive, but tested like 15 drives before I found the one working. Bios updates made no difference and I still have no idea why this happens.

keropi wrote on 2025-02-27, 05:42:

Just to confirm , the bioses of these valuepoint series are very weird when it comes to hdds. I have a 466dx2/tp and it took man […]
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Just to confirm , the bioses of these valuepoint series are very weird when it comes to hdds.
I have a 466dx2/tp and it took many tries to find a hard disk that would not give the bios error.
Even between exact same hdds with same fw that error would show.
Ended up using a 10gb ide HDD with ez-drive, but tested like 15 drives before I found the one working. Bios updates made no difference and I still have no idea why this happens.

Yeah I don't doubt it from what I've seen with it. I've tested most of the drives I had on hand, so now I’m going to try some from my original Xboxes. I should be able to dig up a few 8GB or 10GB ones from them.

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-27, 02:45:

Hey, sorry for the delay, the 16GB Transcend CF cards worked fine in my PS/1 using the Startech adapter:

Hey thanks! I did end up getting a 2gb CF card and it did work but unfortunately my 8gb refuses to work with it.
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I’m restoring this IBM because it’s the same model I had when I was 11 around 1995. A friend of mine upgraded to a new PC and gave me his old one, which was a big deal to me since my family couldn’t have afforded a computer at that time.

I’m restoring this IBM because it’s the same model I had when I was 11 around 1995. A friend of mine upgraded to a new PC and gave me his old one, which was a big deal to me since my family couldn’t have afforded a computer at that time.

Totally get that! This PS/1 is my computer from when I was a teen, I did all the mods to it that I couldn't afford to do as a broke teenager, 🤣.