Thanks all for the kind replies.  I've ordered some of the suggested
modules and hopefully they will work.  I don't think that it's the cards
themselves and here's why (correct me if you think I'm missing
something):  we use the same cards in an Adaptec USB reader or a
crucial/micron usb reader and the system will boot fine.  My problem
with using the adaptec reader or crucial reader is that, in newer boards
like an IntelD915 series, FreeBSD appears to use USB 1.1 drivers and the
boot time is much too long.  Also, the adaptec reader is very expensive
compared to some of these IDE converters.  So, before I roll out a
production machine, I'd like to find a workable alternative to the USB
readers and CF to IDE seemed to be the way to go.  So, we tried a CF to
SATA reader which would crash early during boot and two different CF to
IDE readers one of which just wouldn't begin to boot and the other which
would crash right before loading the monowall console with a disk cache
error.  After that, I wrote my initial request to the forum.  If anyone
feels that they might be able to give me some insight into the boot
issues, I will gladly plug the devices in again and submit the errors
verbatim.  Thank you all again for your assistance,
 

Jason