Do I need real CF cards to do a CF->IDE conversion?

I recently purchased a pile of nc6000 laptops in various states of disrepair and was able to make a few good units (2 excellent/2 with correctable issues) for old equipment and games that don't like Vista/7/8.x/10.

These laptops are all old enough to use IDE hard drives, which were removed when the laptops were scrapped :(. The caddies are gone too, but I can get those easily. I have 1 drive with 1k something hours on it from 2009, but it came out of a dropped T43; however, it was tested to accept an OS with a long format and it passed so it’s probably okay.

While this will work, I want something that’s reliable long term. Since you really can’t find new IDE drives easily I am looking at doing a CF->IDE conversion with an adapter. However, SD->CF adapters are another option I’ve looked into and I can get 2 cheap adapters and 64GB SDXC cards (if the price differential is justifiable). However, I don’t know if this will work. I am looking to install Windows XP Pro SP3 on them.

Will a SD->CF adapter work in a CF->IDE drive adapter? I’m okay with doing it either way with CF, but knowing if I can use SD cards will make it much easier to purchase the cards I need. If not, I know you can buy SD->IDE adapters as well.

I've checked the BIOS and I only think it supports 2 drives. I think 2 CF cards aren't going to work: