There are a few options here.
1) Attempt to use GSETUP instead of the motherboard supplied setup program. IIRC, it has options to attempt a user-defined HDD type. Be apprised that you will still likely hit the 504mb size restriction, due to this being an older system, that came out before extended INT13 was even a thing. You can find GSETUP in the SimTel BBS archive. There are numerous mirrors of it online, like this one:
https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet … tl/gsetup31.zip
2) Install EZ-DRIVE, and use software translation. This is the "What was usually done BITD, because other tools did not exist" solution. You can get it from the Vogons driver's page here:
https://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=19
3) Drop in a 16bit ISA NIC that has a boot rom socket (NE2000 clones, etc), that has the XT-IDE XUB flashed onto a flashrom, and inserted in said socket. Set the BIOS HDD type to NONE, and let the XT-IDE bios handle autodetection and communication with the card. (This is an example NE2000 clone with suitable bootrom socket.)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/326954353071?_skw=NE … ABk9SR-T4qpH9Zg
3A) Drop in an IDE controller that has the XT-IDE XUB already configured and installed. (Most of these are going to be 8bit cards though... You might be able to find a reflashed Promise Technologies 16 bit controller though.) (THIS is such a Promise Technologies 16bit ISA card. You would yank the bios chip off of it, and insert your flashed EEPROM containing the XUB instead.)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267408009135?_skw=pr … ABk9SR86vnJH9Zg
What is "XT-IDE XUB"? It's the XT-IDE project's Universal Bios. It's a modern FOSS implementation of an enhanced translating disk controller BIOS that can work in everything from an early PC-XT, though very modern systems with PCI slots that do bus mastering.
https://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/
Each option has potential upsides and downsides.
Option 1 has the potential upside of not consuming any additional memory, or upper memory area realestate, but has the downside of either not working (BIOS does not know how to interpret a user defined HDD type, even when manually inserted with GSETUP) and likely hitting the 504mb size limit regardless (Cant put more than 1023 cylinders!) For more information on this limitation, read here: http://www.steunebrink.info/bioslim.htm
Option 2 has the upside of enabling bigger disks NO MATTER WHAT (The installer will set the drive type to the best possible match FOR you, and then fills the first track and boot sector with EZ-DRIVE's Dynamic Disk Overlay (DDO). This software loads BEFORE the operating system, snatches up a small amount of conventional memory to install a new handler for INT13 (Disk handler), hooks the vector table to point THERE instead of inside the system bios, THEN loads the operating system from the next track, which it treats like Track0. DOWNSIDES: Consumes memory, and might not play nice with certain operating systems that dont expect it to be there. DOS and Win9x are fine though. Later versions of the DDO work with NT flavor OSes as well, but might not work on a 286. (I think older releases need at least a 386)
Option 3 has the upside of working NO MATTER WHAT. (as long as the XUB is correctly configured before you flash it anyway.) It's an option ROM that takes over the boot process, and does what a DDO does, but since it is ALREADY in memory (In the adapter rom region) it does not need to steal any to be loaded. Instead, it takes up a fair chunk of the adapter rom region, which is where things like UMB memory lives. Its presence might limit what you can squeeze out of your memory configuration as a result. (There ARE programs to turn on hardware UMBs on 286s that have supported chipsets, like CHIPS&TECH ones.) It has the downside of being more complicated to set up, since you need a way to flash the XUB onto a suitable flashrom, and need a suitable NIC to install it into.
Option 3A) There exist add-on disk controllers that have an option rom socket on them already. It's possible to use this socket instead of adding a NIC. Some of these might already even have the XTIDE XUB already flashed there. (Though I dont think Lotech offers 16bit cards... This is usually more things like a reflashed Promise Technologies card.) This has all the same downsides as using a NIC to hold the XUB, (Since a chunk of adapter ROM area is used), but lets you put the XUB directly on the IDE controller. (For the linked Promise IDE controller, the stock bios on the card "might" work for your needs without messing with setting up/flashing XTIDE XUB, but wont have any of the extra functionality that the XTIDE XUB offers, like CDROM detection, LS120 detection, ZIP100 detection, multisector transfer modes, etc.)