VOGONS

Search

Common searches

CF Card Woes

Topic actions

First post, by evildave9000

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hi everyone. I've been messing around with my 486 build for a while now and I am having constant problems using a CF to IDE card interface.

For starters, I also have an old 250mb hard disk in the build and I wanted this to be the master and the CF card to be the slave. It absolutely refuses to work in this configuration. On start up it says that the Primary Master has failed. I've tried various different things, but there seems to be no way round this. So I have the CF as the master and it will boot DOS from this... sometimes.

So in this less than ideal configuration the CF card also seems to be totally unreliable. I have files corrupting, the system hangs all the time (probably because corrupted files), and after a short time of using it inevitably command.com will be corrupted and it will no longer boot. I have a VLB I/O controller - could this be a problem working with a CF card? (It has multiple jumpers that I have no idea what they do)

I've read in these forums that not all CF adaptors are created equal, but they are just pin extensions, aren't they? What can really go wrong? So are CF cards generally unreliable? I've tried two different makes, with similar results. Someone mentioned in another post that they use a SD -> CF adaptor that goes into the CF -> IDE adaptor, and this work fine for them. Is this the way to go?

Reply 2 of 6, by evildave9000

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I have tried both ways. I didn't have the hard drive until about a month ago and in fact I bought it because I wanted to run DOS from the HD because the CF was so unreliable. It doesn't seem to improve its performance when it's on its own. (Also, why does it have the MASTER/SLAVE jumper if it can only work on its own?)

Reply 3 of 6, by Rawit

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Assuming everything is jumpered correctly: can you check if the order the devices are connected to the IDE cable makes a difference? That the CF by itself already corrupts isn't a good sign. Does the controller see the CF correctly?

YouTube

Reply 4 of 6, by flupke11

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I've had issues with cheap CF-IDE adapters on various systems, but never with the fairly expensive Startech adapter. Check/replace cables and try to test the adapter in a newer system to see if it behaves differently.

Reply 5 of 6, by amadeus777999

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
flupke11 wrote on 2020-07-24, 09:58:

I've had issues with cheap CF-IDE adapters on various systems, but never with the fairly expensive Startech adapter. Check/replace cables and try to test the adapter in a newer system to see if it behaves differently.

Great tip. Have wondered for some time if there was an alternative to the trashy ones.

Reply 6 of 6, by evildave9000

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I've been second guessing myself today, so I fired it up and tried a few different jumper configs again and made sure I was going into BIOS each time to set the drives to the right place, but it makes no difference. I just get the same error (picture). I'll try it in a newer system I have that has IDE, but I think I'll probably be buying a Startech adaptor or maybe a USB floppy drive emulator. Are Startech a good bet for USB floppies as well?

Attachments

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window