SSD to CF Replacement Help needed

The SSD on my AAO 110L is failing for the second time, the first was under warranty but now I'm having to pay myself.
My plan was to try swapping the SSD for a Compact Flash Card with ZIF to CF adaptor so I bought this item from ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT
I fits a treat without hacking at the Chassis but I can't get the AAO to recognise the cards in it.
I haven't bought the 8Gb CF card yet as I wanted to test the board first by using a couple of old small (124Mb) CF cards I already have.
On boot, the status light on the ZIF to CF board and HD light on the AAO comes on but BIOS won't see the CF cards.
In some forums I have read the AAOs HD staying on means the drive is set to slave but which ever position I use on the switch on the convertor board the light stays on. I've tried both the ZIF cable included Blue/Blue and Blue/White and the exisiting cable. I've booted from USB to Easy Peasy Live but the HD still isn't found. Some posts on the forums say the BIOS needs to be older for it to recognise different drives (I'm on 3114) but not sure if this is true or not.
Any tips or ideas?