MS-DOS on a flash disk

Hi, I’m trying to replace the HDD’s on some elderly IBM compatible equipment that I run with flash disks. It has to run MS-DOS, and be compatible with BIOS dating from 1998. A step by step guide would be very useful, I am only moderately technical. I’m planning to use 256Mb flash disks. Can I just get an adapter to fit the flash disk to the HDD ribbon cable, then format it and load MS-DOS from floppies. Will the BIOS recognise the flash disk as a HDD? Any help would be appreciated.