OT: Compact Flash (CF) cards

Hi folks: This is off-topic, (and if you are in the sbc6120 group you have already seen it): I got a couple of Compact Flash (CF) cards to play with, and I also got a CF-PCMCIA adapter to try the cards in my laptop. Unfortunately, I cannot get Win-frickin-98 to see the card. I have a similar Smartmedia-PCMCIA adapter for camera cards, and it seems to work fine in the same machine (ibm thinkpad 600e). In both cases, I inserted the card/adapter, WinBlows sees it and starts the device wizard to install a "Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller." For the Smartmedia card/adapter, the card automatically appears as a drive in Explorer, and all is well. For the CF card/adapter, it asked me to reboot, and even then does not see the card. The Device Manager Status for the controller says "device not present, not working properly, or does not have all drivers installed (code 10)." There are no resource conflicts to correct. However, the controller driver is seen by the PCMCIA utility that allows me to stop the card for removal. I've searched at ibm and microsoft, and various google finds, but cannot make sense of this, and have already spent way too much time on it. Has anyone had problems or success reading CF cards in Win98 with a PCMCIA adapter? Is a usb adapter a better choice? Upgrading the o/s is not an option, since I never intend to give microsoft another penny. thanks in advance, gil ;----------------------------------------------------------- ; vaux electronics, inc. 480-354-5556 ; http://www.vauxelectronics.com (fax: 480-354-5558) ;-----------------------------------------------------------