Fireflyx91 wrote on 2023-11-11, 16:34:

Edit: Just discovered if I remove and reinsert the card it crashes the pc

That sounds reasonable - the purpose of those IDE to CF adapters is to present the CF card as an IDE drive. And generally, computers tend to get very sad when IDE drives vanish during operation...

I wonder if you'd have better luck with a USB card reader, although someone else would have to comment on how well 98SE might support those... but at least USB card readers are actually intended as card readers, i.e. removable media.

VivienM wrote on 2023-11-11, 17:48:

That sounds reasonable - the purpose of those IDE to CF adapters is to present the CF card as an IDE drive. And generally, computers tend to get very sad when IDE drives vanish during operation...

Ah so the reader isn't the drive but the actual card itself. So I guess it can potentially be used as removable storage but only removed when the pc is turned off. I'm still not sure how to get Win 98 to actually read it though.

If you are giong to be using a 2 IDE devices on the same cable, one needs to be configured as amaster and the other as slave.

Also, some devices (especially older ones) don't play nice together.

I suggest you make sur your CF card adapter is set as master and try it alone on its cable, as a first test .

Fundamentally, there are multiple definitions of "removable" - the classic one especially for CF cards is the one in their ATA identity ("passport" in Victoria), which is generally fixed to "fixed" for industrial cards, always "removable" for most every retail one, and can't be changed (outside of very targeted firmware mods like atcfwchg for at best a couple years' worth of Sandisk's production, or a handful of models that automatically becomes "fixed" for IDE operation);

and being actually hotpluggable, like being on an USB interface!
(even IDE is hotpluggable, actually - it's just that pretty much no OS is designed for that, but low level direct disk access software like MHDD won't complain 😀 )

I think, but am not sure at all, that in 9x you can tell apart the former from their icon (and the fact they'll reject multiple partitions: superfloppy or single MBR partition only - of course you must deal with this with 3rd party software!)

The 2nd definition is relevant to the extent you must configure the bios correctly for your card - ignore any "ATAPI removable" options and set it up like a traditional HDD (auto or manual), which of course will highlight any problems it may have with your card…
(Most HDDs over 8 GB will list that as their maximum CHS capacity, but most CF cards declare their real capacity, and apparently this really screws up int13 disk access in my Igel M310C)

An IDE-to-CF adapter is for using a CF card just like you would use any other hard drive. In order to use it in a PC, the card would need to be detected by your BIOS, then partitioned and formatted by the OS.

And if you're using it on the same IDE cable, as mentioned above, you need to have the proper master/slave settings for each device connected to the cable.

If you just want removable storage, you're better off using a USB thumb drive or USB reader for that.

Thank you the responses so far. I've had a read through them and the first thing I've attempted is trying to change the master/slave settings. The CD drive has jumper settings so I set that as slave but if you can see by the attachment, I seem to have broke everything further 😕

Just a thought... Am I better running this on the primary ide as a secondary Hard drive?

As for running it alongside the Hard drive it's finally been recognised. However it's set the CF card to master even though I set the jumper on the Harddrive to master 🤔

Also The CF reader has no jumper settings

Fireflyx91 wrote on 2023-11-11, 21:40:

As for running it alongside the Hard drive it's finally been recognised. However it's set the CF card to master even though I set the jumper on the Harddrive to master 🤔

Also The CF reader has no jumper settings

Do you have a picture of the CF adapter you are using?

All the Startech ones I use have jumpers for switching between master/slave.

Ah forget that. It does have them hidden away at the front. I had a look from behind expecting to see it near the pins 😂

I think I got there in the end, all looks good now. This is the first time I've ever touched one of these CF Readers so at least I know what to do with them now. But thanks for all the advice with that guys 👍

Remember that IDE is just an extension of the ISA bus (Unless using VLB or PCI controller). So if you hot plug a CF card with a CF to IDE adapter board, you're basically hot plugging an ISA card to the mobo. Which is not supported. Like others said, better off to use a USB or serial card reader for hot swapping.