This is my CF reader (or very similar) it also has a jumper to set to master or slave. Not all adapters have this. I like ones that do as keeps my options open
https://www.ebay.com/itm/40-Pin-CF-compact-fl … tIAAOSwuV1cnHxN

as for networking as long as your Windows is the "for workgroups" edition you just need the TCP/IP update and it'll talk to anything up to XP
https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-tcp- … /tcpip-32-3-11b
This would also allow you browse the web, if you wanted to do that just for kicks.

But trying to copy files with anything later then XP, I'd just go with ftp and even XP can be trouble sometimes.
You can also have both if you were sharing files with a Win10 PC then use ftp but still setup tcp in windows to get web access.

By what Swiego is saying it sounds like you are limited to 512MB "drives" This is less of an issue if you are using CF cards as you can swap them out easily and 512MB cards are dirt cheap.
I do the same but with entirely different OS's. My Dos/Win3 card. WIn95 card, etc. as long as the cards are exactly the same you don't even have to go into bios to change anything

Yes my Deskpro/I (which I believe is quite similar) needed an updated HBA to utilize larger drives. The Promise board let me use a 2GB CF card for a while, before I switched back to a Quantum ~500MB drive because I liked the sound 😀

Mine also has a Seagate 1GB SCSI drive connected to my old Soundblaster 16 SCSI2 ISA board. This might be another way to get storage to the system.

I’d be curious if you can check transfer speeds to see if the IDE controller is on the ISA bus or some local bus. On the Deskpro/I it is most definitely on the ISA bus, which was highly disappointing to conclude since it means there will always be a 50x throughput penalty vs a system that had PCI. I hold out hope because the Prolinea eventually got local bus graphics which the Deskpro/I never did.

Shishkebarbarian wrote on 2020-07-04, 16:51:

Thanks a lot for chiming in. I hope to get it up and running with an ODPR as well. Will report back if it'll take the 16mb ram sticks, according to Compaq upgrade parts list, it's the precise part number for the upgrade.

I haven't poppped out the battery yet, how do you recommend I do that? It looks soldered in. How would i replace it?

If memory serves, I believe I just gently rocked the battery back and forth until it popped off. Mine was just barely starting to leak - thankfully I caught it before it made it onto the board! There is a plug on the board to connect an external battery. I used an inexpensive battery box off of eBay that holds three AA batteries and it's been working problem free with that for probably a decade now.
As for disk drives, I have both a 512MB CF card in a generic slot adapter and a 340MB Western Digital drive. It's more than sufficient space for my purposes. Back in the day, I remember my dad trying to add a brand new 2.5GB drive to it. Western Digital's EZ-Drive made it work. Then I came home from school one day with a disk that had the Stoned Empire Monkey virus on it 😀.

Closed and posts deleted. Sell your hardware elsewhere, this is not allowed on VOGONS.