First post, by eesz34
I got a CF-IDE adapter off eBay and tried it out. My 386 BIOS correctly detects it as does XT-IDE. The problem is I can't even run FDISK.
I wish I'd written down the error because I undid it all and put the HDD back in frustration. As an aside, I looked at FDISK.EXE in Notepad++ thinking I'd recognize the error message it displayed, but then realized for the first time ever that MS-DOS executables are compressed with PKLite? Very surprised....
Anyway, I booted from a DOS 6.22 disk and ran FDISK but it displays an error and kicks me back to the command prompt. The CF card is formatted, yet I can't switch to C:. The CF card is a nearly 20 year old 256MB Kingston that is detected as Hitachi.
I know there's going to be valid questions like did you try another card, and what is the error? I do need to answer those, but I know the card worked just a week ago in a USB CF card reader.
If anyone has suggestions please let me know, but the bigger question is: what is with these CF-IDE adapters? I found a few posts where the OP claimed the CF card was detected yet they couldn't use it, but....replacing the adapter fixed the problem.
Wait, what? In my mind, if it's detected, all signals are connected between the card and IDE port. But then again I don't understand IDE well enough to know. Maybe there's a strobe line or something that doesn't have to function for detection to be successful.