I have been using SD2IDE adapters successfully for months now in various 386 systems ranging from 1989 to 1992. They are also mainly used in my two 386 machines at home.
There are two types of adapters, the 3.5inch and the 2.5inch variety. They differ in the fact that the 2.5inch version does not have a jumper setting option, typically not needed on laptops anyways, since the master/slave setting is almost always handled by the proprietary BIOS of these machines. I almost exclusively use the 2.5inch SD2IDE variety (Sintechi "SD to CF version 1") as I mainly work with laptops.
Which also leads to another frequently used workaround: Due to the fact that over 95% of ALL laptops of this era do feature a proprietary (and therefore in most cases heavily neutered) BIOS, you are almost always UNABLE to change drive settings like type, amount of cylinders, heads, sectors, etc. yourself. In addition to this in almost all of the scenarios, even if your CF or SD card is lower in size than the present BIOS HDD size limitation, they will NOT get detected successfully/correctly. This might differ heavily on desktop mainboards, but the success rate when it comes to laptops is pretty much nil.
These two factors - the incorrect detection of type/cyl/head/etc as well as the fact that you normally would like to use higher capacities than the BIOS can handle - almost always lead me to use Drive Overlay software like OnTrack or EZ-BIOS (recommended). Not only does using one of these take away the need to configure the BIOS (remember, with most laptops, you CAN'T), but it also solves the problem of the BIOS HDD maximum capacity barrier.
So yeah, Drive overlay software is my friend when it comes to laptops, because you are pretty much dependent on them (if you want to use these kinds of HDD replacement adapters like CF and SD), since you cannot change drive settings in the BIOS yourself.
So in regards to desktop mainboards, it might as well be helpful for you to try using some overlay software if you cannot get the BIOS to detect the drive correctly, even on a desktop board.. Using this kind of software lets you ignore the settings of the HDD in the BIOS completely, since at every boot, the Drive Overlay software takes over and translates Heads/Cyls/Sectors, etc as well as drive size and type correctly, regardless of what the BIOS settings are set to.
It's just worth giving it a try. I HAVE to use these overlays on laptops, since I cannot change these kinds of settings manually in the BIOS. But ppl fiddling around with desktop mainboards, running Phoenix or Award BIOS let you change these settings at will. Even though it can be difficult to get a certain board to accept certain adapters, so you might as well try using an overlay that "sets these settings" automatically and correctly. Well, it doesnt "set" anything to be precise, it just overrides the BIOS at each system boot, making sure that the aforementioned settings are overridden so the adapters work.
I just realized that I make it sound like these drive overlays were written for these adapters, but for the overlay, these adapters are nothing else than oversized and therefore incompatible HDDs that need "translation".