Have laptop that working fine -- just swapping in a new bigger hard drive. Using install OS [opensuse 12.3] that used before with no problems.
Upon first installing the new hard drive, got message of two lines [repeated again and again] to provide a booting source.
Install went fine until got to "will now reboot the system" at which point all went black and then nothing further -- no reboot.
Tried booting from turned-off status, but nothing. When used tab for "Post Information" just got quick two screens listing Bios data and auto-detecting Master etc.
When used install cd to boot using with the first line of "boot from hard drive" just put me at black screen with line "Booting from local disk..." and nothing further.
Do I just write this hard drive off and buy new one from different supplier, or is there some way to get beyond this booting choke-point??? [Doesn't seem likely, but would putting the boot option on new install at MBR, rather than Extended partition and/or Boot partition, make any difference?]
At total loss as to how to proceed, so any insight greatly appreciated.

To clarify, you have been using Opensuse and you replaced the drive and have a new drive on which you are trying to install Opensuse 12.3, is that correct? I haven't used 112.3, but on earlier versions of Opensuse, when the installation finishes you are prompted to reboot and remove the installation medium. You then need to create a user and some further steps to complete the installation. Did this not happen?

If you did not set Grub to boot from the MBR, then you need to configure the bootloader on whatever system you use to boot the machine. If opensuse 12.3 is the only system, then you need it in the mbr. Are you using UEFI?

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OpenSUSE 12.3 is going End Of Life this summer

i would install 13.1

also did you set up a separate root account using a different password than the first non root user

this is a laptop , so is it using a optimums CPU / GPU

On this install, the install sequence itself specified that it would now reboot -- and no, it did not do so. Am not using UEFI, and not really sure how to install it on my very old [12 year old] IX250+ laptop.
When all else failed, and I started to reinstall again, and tried an "update", I was prompted as to whether I really wanted to try to update this os since it said the previous install was an incomplete install; I tried it and didn't work [back to no reboot] and then tried the full new install using all the defaults, but again wouldn't reboot.
Thanks for your input.

I would not even try to install OpenSUSE 13.1 ( or the soon to be End Of Life 12.3 ) on a laptop from 2002

OpenSUSE really dose need at least 2 gig of ram and 4 gig to 12 gig would be better

i would look at using CentOS 5.10 or 6.5

I'd wonder if the old system supports this size or chs size of new drive.

To update results of many attempts:
1. Do have 2 gigs of ram
2. got same problem when switched-in old drive which came with laptop when I tried a new install; all was working perfectly prior to the new install
3. have run the OSes test for accuracy of the install disc and came up with "no errors"
4. some screens I got while doing new install attempts:
Error occurred during initrd creation:
Kernel image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.7.10-1.1-default
Initrd image: /boot/initrd-3.7.10-1.1-default
KMS drivers: radeon
Root device: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-HTS4etc. HKA47EALCET3OR-part2 (/dev/sda2) (mounted on / as ext4)
/usr device /dev/disk/by-id/ata HKetc. -part5 (/dev/sda5)
Kernel Modules: hwmon thermal_sys thermal processor etc.
Firmware: radeon/R520_cp.bin radeon/RS600etc. radeon/RS690etc.
Features: acpi kms plymouth block usb resume.userspace resume.kernel

on next screen got: Error occurred while installing GRUB2
/usr/sbin/grub2-bios-setup: error: disk 'fd0' not found

next screen: An error occured during boot loader installation Retry [said yes, but no improvement]

next: gave boot loader options kept only MBR but no improvement

then it said OK and installing Boot Loader & then will reboot

Then got: "Booting from local disk..."
GRUB loading
Welcome to GRUB! then nothing -- just stayed with that message on screen, but grub never loaded

Should I try from the boot options available that of old Grub or LILO??? doubt it would make a difference

Situation is that install medium has checked out as without error; laptop was running fine before these new install attempts;
and at least that one old hard drive was well proven for reliability--but now has same "no boot" problem as that new hard drive I first tried to install to, and which first displayed this non-booting problem; Could some sort of virus have spread from that new hard drive to the old, reliable one? again, seems most unlikely, but have tried all variations and can't understand just where the problem is coming from; laptop, old hard drive, and install cd all check out as fine.

"fd0" is a 3.5 in floppy
there is no current os that even looks for a 3.5 in floppy anymore
( RHEL 5.10 is an exception )

you have to explicitly add " modprobe floppy " to the bootline

also a 12 year old ATI 3d "chip" might not be supported any more
using a 2d driver might be the only option

but Opensuse 12.3 will WANT a 3d driver
the "plymouth" bootloader will want it


is it just a all cap
if so you installed grub to the wrong partition or disk

There is no floppy attached to laptop in any way -- have no idea where that fd0 reference came from, although it appeared only relative to that brand new hard disk that I was trying to install; it didn't appear during the problems for installing new os in the old hard drive.
Suspect will eventually have to use the "rescue" feature of the install disc to check and change the boot loading and initrd, but frankly not at all sure how to procede.

Might be that you have some usb device that reports as a drive or floppy?? It would be weird. Might see if you have a floppy enabled in bios.

I doubt a virus. Most unlikely would be overlapping partitions created somehow. It has been a long time since I've seen that. Maybe a full wipe of current disk is due.

What I might suggest is you get high quality disc and burn it at the very slowest speeds. Could be a faulty drive.

It might be possible that you can boot to a netinst cd and then point to other media maybe network or usb.

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full wipe didn't help; install disks been using are not downloaded and burned, but come directly from suse.

got this message: /dev/sda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive

saw one suggestion on this whereby you use grub-install --recheck /dev/sda BUT I don't have the recheck command installed; any suggestions for alternate procedure, or how to find and install that command???

Sometimes suse has an issue with installer and disks without data or odd partitions. Boot to bios and confirm that the drive is reported "properly" in bios. May have to power down fully and then back to bios. (while linux doesn't fully need to have bios support it helps installers)
Then boot to some disc like knoppix and create /boot swap and partitions you want. Then reboot to suse and see if you can now install to using those partitions.

Not sure what you mean by "boot to bios"; the only thing on screen during regular boot is message: Grub 1.5 Grub loading, please be patient -- which continues forever [just gave it two hours to see if anything came up, but nothing].
So assuming you mean to go into setup with my Amibios [version P16D1.190] options, and on this both boot choices are there {hard disk and cd/dvd option], with only other item being on the Secure HDD Support being presently disabled [believe just effects power to it].
Have tried using live cd [came with suse 11.4], but haven't been able to install it as keeps freezing.

Some additional data on bios that came up during one or another of my frantic variations gave this data:

BIOS:
Bus: None
Class (Spec): BIOS
Class: Internally used
Old Unique Key: IB+A.IZF+r4EgHp4
Unique Key: rdCR.IZF+r4EgHp4
apm_biosflags: 0
apm_enabled: No
apm_subversion:0
apm_supported: No
apm_version: 0
iS_pnp_bios: Yes
Iba_supported: Yes

Basically, that's all the info I have access to, except whenever I try some commands using the RESCUE section on the install OS, all I get [even when being sure to be in the correct directory, and being root] is "command not found" and "no such file or directory", again and again and again for really basic commands and files relative to grub.

Appreciating everyone's input.

I guess it's possible that you messed up a cable or connector or chip. If it worked and you played with it the old drive ought to work. Since you can't get the original drive to work it has to be some firmware/bios setting or some damage to either both drives or the motherboard.

Actually, the original hard drive used by me was at first not coming up [after the new one I tried to install wouldn't boot, but used live version of that same os and it caused the blockage to lift and now that works fine, BUT the new one still won't boot, and gives messages: /dev/sda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive; and when tried to use live cd again, it kept freezing after coming up.
A repair disk that self-booted finally gave-up with this message: Kernel panic:VFS: unable to mount root fs on 01:00