Reply 20 of 29, by Predator99
It doesnt matter if you have a MFM or an IDE controller installed, both will work in the 286.
As said, disable the controller BIOS and boot from Floppy. Then check with any IDE low-level tool if the drive is detected.
If not, XT-IDE will not help you as there is another problem.
Here are some tools to choose from
http://www.dcee.net/Files/Utils/