I just got my USB to IDE adapter in today and have Fate Ulimited Codes running from HDD... Here's as much detail about my process as I can think of:
I had a Western Digital 80GB drive laying around (WD800JB) it was formatted as a Windows XP main Drive.
I set the jumper to Master and hooked it up to my Win 7 PC using this adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N0VKR6L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Plugged the power and USB adapters into the drive first, then plugged the power adapter into the wall then the USB adapter into the PC last.
I extracted the HDD image from the CHD into an img file using this command:
Code:
chdman extractraw -i fateulc\fud-hdd0-a.chd -o fud-hdd0-a.img
Then I used Win32DiscImager to write that .img file to the Drive. Once the write was complete I unplugged the USB cable then unplugged power. (I did not attempt to view the drive continence in windows nor did I "eject" the drive)
I flashed my dongle to the "fateulc-fud1vera.bin" file. and the installed the drive and the dongle into my System246B and booted up
I'm running with a Sega JVS to JAMMA IO and 15KHz video mode but I don't think either of those should matter for this game.
I will say it took a VERY long time to boot. I got the start up beeps then about 30+ seconds of a black screen before I saw some "boot 01" text, then 30+ more seconds of black screen then a small "Init Sound" text in the lower right corner then another 30+ second of black screen before it started showing what you'd expect to see from other games booting.
So yeah... give it a few minutes before you write it off as not working.