[hakfoo]

I think there reaches a point where you outsource the problem to something like the XT-IDE Universal BIOS, which does more than what the name says. (It's also configurable for use as an option ROM for machines with normal IDE)

I'm fond of the SD-IDE adapters because these days, CF cards are harder to find, and some are not 100% happy with straight CF-IDE adaptors, but the SD-IDE adaptor has to do stuff and so is better at compatibility.

When I threw one in my 386SX, the BIOS didn't like it. It didn't autodetect, and although it claimed to support drives up to 8Gb, it would do weird stuff and refuse to boot on a 4GB card, even if I said "just use 100Mb of it".

On XUB, it autodetects fine and I just set up a 2GB partition because it's the largest FAT16 will support, and far more than you need when the original drive was 40Mb.

Added plus: the easiest way to add it is to buy a $15 NIC and slap the ROM in the boot-ROM socket, so now it has networking.

[nubinetwork]

I've pondered going all SCSI and using a SCSI emulator... Summer project perhaps :)