I bought another HD just like the one I'm using now(Maxtor Ultra ATA/133)I took the first one out and put it in a safe place,it has mepis on it everything is OK,no windows ,I just replaced a WD ultra/ata 100 about a month ago because It went bad trying to upgrade/install the first time,also about 6 months ago another WD drive went bad installing Fedora core 2 test.The installs go fine say they are loading grub to the mbr,remove cd and reboot your new system,they will not boot even off a live cd without the hard drive disconected! O.K. this time I was installing Debian on the new HD because I wanted to learn and just to do it.Same thing happened again,put the other drive in and all is ok.What is going on and what could I be doing wrong,I gun shy now,thanks david

if your having these problems w/ new hardives, i'd look somewhere on the motherboard, maybe a bad controller, possibly the power supply is on it's last leg. a typical install of any os shouldn't kill hardrives. the only other thing i can think of is possibly something going wrong w/the bootloader install, or maybe a bios problem.
good luck.

I agree with Peacedog -- it sounds like your controller has gone south, or that your power supply is going haywire. Neither of those scenarios is appealing, and I'd replace both. As long as you are using quality drives (I prefer Western Digital) you should receive years of trouble-free service from them. If you are replacing drives every <6 months, I don't think it's the drives themselves. -- J.W.

Thanks for the info,once the HD is messed up,when I try to get into bios it hangs saying setup but doesn't go to the next screen,with a good hard drive or none at all go's into bios fine,that is why I removed the good HD and didn't install it as slave,they always mess up I think installing grub.I'm going to exchange the last HD for another one I hope,can't just through money out the window.Don't know what to do next.

My advice: replace the mobo. As I said previously, I don't think the problem is with the hard drive itself. It might suck to have to lay out the cash for a new mobo but in the long run it's a lot easier and cheaper than replacing the hard drive every couple of months. -- J.W.

Sounds strange.
Have you tried to attach the disk to an other computer as slave, and then format the drive via a healthy system.
I have tried something similar, but slavaged some drives formatting them on a windows maskine, and then again format them on linux.

But the story about your PSU....might be a good idear to use quality. IT's the only thing, accapt for your cabinet, that will last for years. My psu is from Noicecontrol, i.e. a converted Enermax with a PAPSAT fan. It's quality, but you pay for it about 150 US$

OR it might be a heat problem. Remember to have good circulation about hot disks, that will make them last longer.

By the way, I saw some very cool Fortron, PSU, thay have 120mm fan in them, and they are very low noice.

Thanks for the info;The comp runs fine otherwise only when I do a install and everything seems fine untill grub is installed,and doesn't happen everytime,there for awile I was trying a new dist every few months,this is a cheap gateway 310,that use to be a rental,they say linux is not supported,I think it could be heat to or I fried something before.I didn't try the drive in another comp but I tryid it as slave in this one and it won't boot with it connected,its not the hard drives because I have tryed a couple different brands.I was lucky to get this install done!I don't know much about it but in my googleing when grub doesn't get installed right it can really mess up the drive?

Is this after running the manufacturers utility disk and having the drive reported as bad?
If not there is probably some other problem.

When I conect the drive I can not boot with anything,when I put my good drive in I can boot fine,if I connect the drive as slave with the good drive I can't boot so I have been unable to check the drive,if there is a way I would like to but I don't know how.thanks I'm open for advice

You want to use the PowerMax diagnostic. If it does not report your drive as bad you have another problem.
It needs Windows to create the diagnostic floppy. If you are unable to do this I can post an image for a short time.

Thanks,I don't use windows.I don't have a floppy drive?

EDIT: Oops
The floppy image may not be much use for you then.

The HD is fine! I just put in a old p-pro and it boots into debian fine,just where I left off on the net install,what could it be?Both HD are the same and the jumpers are the same?I think I messed up the jumpers during install because I had to move it to get the p-1 to boot but still won't boot in the other,should I disable the boot from CD,could it be trying to boot from cd and then just gives up?

That is very bad if the jumpers are the same. Tell me, do you have both harddrives on one channel? If you do then You shouldn't have the jumpers alike. If you have them on seperate channels then It will matter what CDROM you have hooked up to that channel. It sounds like a jumper problem because of the fact it only messes up when you load GRUB. You might want to look at the grub.conf file to make sure you are using the right harddrives to store the kernel image on. I don't know but Just my idea. I am only 14 so I dont know that much. BTW, Gentoo rox, comprookie.

There is no reason to assume that there is anything wrong with
the hard disks so don't throw them away.
Look in your bios and see if there is any boot sector protection
enabled. This might prevent your linux install from writing the
boot loader to the disk.
If you have boot sector protection enabled then disable it.