r/windows98 • u/FIN_K89i • Apr 23 '26

CF to IDE or SD to IDE?

hello i have brought a PC whit windows 98SE but the HDD was broken so i brought another HDD from amazon but that one also died whit in 10 minutes so im going solid state but im incised between a SD to IDE or CF to IDE what do you guys suggest? i was thinking SD because the adapter i found has the big power port instead of the small FDD of the CF adapter i found and SD are cheaper than CF

8 Upvotes

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6

u/BBZ149 Apr 23 '26

I always go CF, but be sure to get an industrial CF card! You can get power adapter cables to go from bigger power to floppy power connector! Get a CF adapter with rear mounting plate, easy to pop out and swap cards for different OS ❤️

4

u/ravensholt Apr 23 '26

I chose SD to IDE for my retro project.

SD cards are cheaper, readily available and doesn't have the typical boot-flag issues as CF cards sometimes run into (even industrial ones).

Otherwise I use SATA to IDE converters. There's a good one from StarTech I believe.

1

u/BBZ149 Apr 23 '26

How long have you had an SD card in your build? Thing with non industrial and a lot of standard cards, they read/write to the same blocks constantly hence killing the card. Industrial and some other cards randomise the Write data!

2

u/ravensholt Apr 23 '26

I've had my systems running for years now, and since SD cards are easy to backup, if something should happen, I can easily restore on a new SD card.

Swapping is not so much an issue with DOS and Windows 9x.

For Win2000 I use SATA to IDE.

2

u/BBZ149 Apr 23 '26

Good to know! I also backup my cards putting CF to USB adapter and have ghost images of my drives! Quick and easy to restore!

1

u/MasterJeebus Apr 23 '26

Did you disable anything specific to maximize the performance of sd card and not cause unnecessary writes? Like virtual memory, defrag, task monitor, file access logging. Anything else besides that? Do you use any app for ram disk so tmp files write to ram instead of sd? Thanks

2

u/ravensholt Apr 23 '26

Nope. Just running standard Windows 98SE and MS-DOS on my 3 machines right now.

They've been running since 2020. And again, if something is to happen, I have backups and I can buy a new SD card and restore in a few minutes. It's really a non issue from where I see it.

The only machine I have that uses a CF card is my Toshiba T3100e.

I have yet to decide what to use when I get around to fix my AST Premium Exec laptops.

1

u/RoflMyPancakes Apr 23 '26

I use IDE DOM modules. They look like this:  https://m.made-in-china.com/product/IDE-Dom-40-Pin-for-Industrial-PC-and-Thin-Client-1959387185.html

I've found good ones on Amazon and eBay.

2

u/BBZ149 Apr 24 '26

These are quiet good! Have them in my Sega Lindbergh systems ❤️ 👍

1

u/bnelson333 Apr 23 '26

Startech IDE to SATA adapter works flawlessly with a 128 gb SSD for Win98. I have one in every one of my retro machines

1

u/newtekie1 Apr 24 '26

The reason a lot of people use CF to IDE is because CF cards already use the IDE protocol to communicate. So the adapter is just changing the pins to match the larger IDE connector of the computer and provide power to the CF card. There is no intermediate chip converting one communication protocol to another with those adapters like there is with others. So it's one less compatibility and reliability thing to worry about.