Fixing a hard drive that will not boot
 

I have a system that I was trying to install SUSE 9.2 on all week. I could get through the installation fine, but when it tried to boot from the hard drive I would get the system message "Unable to boot from hard drive. Insert system disk."

If I put the SUSE install CD in and then selected Install after a few screens it would indicate that there was already a system installed on the drive. Selecting "Boot existing installation" would successfully boot the installed operation. I tried using cfdisk, using lilo, Grub, changing the boot partions, reinstalling after using the Maxtor program that completely wipes the hard drive, and the exact same problem resulted.

I had another hard drive laying around so I tried installing on that one and it worked fine the first time.

Does anyone know what may have happened to the first drive to cause the problem? I tried installing Windows NT 4.0 on it and it worked fine.

Is the "Unable to boot from hard drive. Insert system disk." an approximation of the error message or the *real* deal? Did you accidentally install GRUB or LILO in an OS partition instead of in the MBR?

Yes, first potential problemmaker is lilo/grub. Also, if you use the cd, it might use a kernel from it. Maybe your original kernel doesn't have support for the drive i.e. SATA. Just guesses here.

Hmm no this is the equivalent of the DOS message that no operating system was available and asking you to insert a floppy in disk A:.

I'm pretty certain he didn't install Grub/LILO in the MBR.

A Grub boot floppy is a very useful thing to have lying around when doing this stuff.

Make sure you have a valid menu.lst somewhere (either on the floppy, or on a partition). That quickly identifies whether the problem is the drive or something you did. I know, I was that soldier ;)