Eureka!
MAgnetic was correct.
So the whole story is this: the CF from Kingston, sold by Amikit, does NOT work as PCMCIA card; I did everything humanly possible to make it work.
Out of frustration, I have restored ClassicWB on the Kingston 4 Gb, and formatted as fat32 the Sandisk 8 Gb: as soon as I put it in the slot, it was correctly mounted.
I can read onto it; which is awesome! Now why one card works as IDE and not as PCMCIA card is a mystery to me (I was reading about SCSI commands in the firmware of the card, which are not present in some newer card...but makes no sense, since both cards are new, altho the Sandisk works and the Kingston doesn't).
I just assumed that since Amikit sell it, it would be compatible with both PCMCIA and IDE, but it is not the case.
I love you guys, I can finally close the case (pun intended 
)
The kingston cards are known to be flakey. i dont know if they have bad firmwares or it was a quality control issue on some. I ran into problems with them years ago and now avoid them like the plague(at least the 4gb non pro version with he flower)
