Actually all I did to make it work was leave the room for a few minutes. The next time I powered on, it detected fine, I was able to install the OS, and it seems to be working great now.
I'm a Linux user and in that environment I don't think it matters how a CF card reports itself, it gets treated as a hard drive... so this bit you're referring to is news to me. I don't think its an issue for me though, I suspect it not working initially was just a fluke. Maybe the cable was bent at a bad angle, who knows.
FWIW I'm using a Kensington 4GB 133X CF card and a Creative I/O Ultra IDE to CF adapter, in case somebody is keeping a list of known working hardware.