So do I use the adapter bracket with my ide data controller card

Thought id share a photo of one of the ch ide adapter s im using this one has
Jumpers on it im not sure whether there in the right place as this adapter
I tried I had trouble with too

It's jumpered as MASTER, and for 3.3v cards.

That should be correct.

Thanks for
Letting me no unfortunately I tried this adapter as well but had no luck with it

What card did you put in it?

I put this adapter and my other sd IDE adapter in the ide controller data card
But had no luck

post a picture please.

Here is an image I found online, showing (more or less) the exact same kind of adapter, with a compact flash module inserted.

The compact flash module is what stores the data, and what communicates on the port. The adapter only changes the spacing of the pins so it can be physically attached, and supplies power. In all other ways it is a passive device.

This kind plugs directly onto the IDE controller's connectot.

IDE card --> CF to IDE adapter --> CF card

Like shown here. CF card inside adapter, adapter plugged straight onto the IDE cable port, with no cable.

Since your IDE controller is an addon card, the adapter would be plugged straight to the card.

Here’s a picture with th ch card inserted to the adapter I had the adapter plugged directly
Into the ide data card like in the picture you posted

Interesting.

I'd want to test that card+adapter in another machine.

I have a nother pc it’s got windows 95 installed it’s a Pentium 3
But it would be hard for me to try the card adapter in that machine such as getting inside that machine
And putting it in it so I don’t really feel comfortable doing that

Saw an interesting YouTube video on Adrian’s digital basement how he’s restoring a 286 pc
Apparently he had the same problem his sd to ide adapter and ch to ide adapter
Didn’t work then he tried an old 286 compatible hard drive and it worked straight away
So I’m thinking I might give that a go Ive seen ha old 286 hard drive on eBay
Apparently in working condition so I might give that a go
I know there prone to fail but least I might be able to install something on it
While it’s working

I would suggest getting a prebuilt xtide card. It would almost be plug in and run and uses compact flash.

Thanks for that idea I might see if I can get one online maybe I’d have better luck with that

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-13, 12:55:

So I’m thinking I might give that a go Ive seen ha old 286 hard drive on eBay

CF's and various adapters are usually made to the latest IDE spec, which is most likely not what the 286 mobo/card supports. That kinda works both ways, some really old HDDs can have issues on newer (Pentium and up) mobos, esp. master/slave selection and support for another device on the same cable.

Anyway - you don't always need an old HDD, although these are nice and period-correct. Can be pricey though if in good shape, or be quite noisy (due to age and use, and some were never really quiet into begin with) or have tons of bad sectors. If your mobo supports custom type 47 drive (that is, with user input values for CHS and LZ/PC) then any drive that supports CHS addressing will do. It's even possible to use some of the extra space with some boot managers that patch older BIOSes, which can be pure software or something like XTIDE.

I prefer XTIDE BIOS extension socketed into network card since I like having Ethernet connection on my machines. I've been using various Samsung HDDs (including 40G and 80G models) due to their low price, good performance and quiet operation. That being said I do have some machines with "old clunker HDDs" just because I like those too, just not for hours at a time 😀

Thanks for all that information I hade a look for a prebuilt xtide card and they seem pretty hard
To find online as I can’t find any so I think I’d rather go for a hard drive
I’ve got a Epson 286 equity 3 model I think any ideas on what hard drives I could
Use like are there any newer hard drives I could use for that model

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-13, 14:09:

I’ve got a Epson 286 equity 3 model

Not familiar I'm afraid, your best bet is to enter the BIOS setup and see what HDD types are supported. Preferably it would support the type 47 user-defined HDD parameters I've mentioned, otherwise you're stuck with one of the existing HDD geometries defined in the BIOS. Unless you go the XTIDE route since it can patch the BIOS to support any CHS including translation.

Obviously you also need to fit the HDD inside the machine but pretty much any 3.5" HDD will do fine.

Even in the case you are limited to certain HDD types keep in mind that as long as your actual drive has equal or more heads/cylinders/sector it's good. Some will just not be used. Modern drives will pretty much always have 16 heads and 63 sectors, just bigger number of cylinders. You can add XTIDE ROM later (via Ethernet card or otherwise) to your system too, but that will most likely require the HDD to be re-partitioned and formatted again.

Just a quick update
I don’t believe it I decided to try the sd to ide adapter card in the slot 2 instead of slot 1
I turned on the computer and now it shows the adapter and sd card at start up
So I tried partitioning the card through dos it gives the usual partitioning options
But when I tried to partition the card it gives a message
No space to create dos partition
It also shows no space to create dos partition
Display partition information
Current fixed disk drive 1
Partition status 1 type non dos
Start 0
End 198
Size 199
Total disk space is 1023 cylinders
Any ideas on what I should do next

This is good - much more seems to be working!

It can't create a partition because it thinks the disk is already filled with one.

Assuming this is the card you've be working with and there's NOTHING on it you want to keep, you need to delete the existing partition, probably good to do:

> FDISK /MBR

to restore the MasterBootRecord.

If there is stuff on the card you want to keep , DON'T do the above - you need to use another card, mount it under whatever OS created it and pull off the data, or use more advanced partition management software to resize the existing partition to make room for a DOS one!

thanks ill give it a try and see how i go

I gave fdisk/mbr ago at the dos a pro t it gave me the usual options
Such as create a primary partition or a second partition
Or delete a partition or view a partition
But when I tried to delete the partition it gave the same message as I wrote above
And it won’t delete the partition or let me create a new partition
I’m not sure whether I need to do something else to fix this problem
Or if I’m doing something wrong any suggestions