Looking for ideas on a weird hard disk problem.

I have a spare Seagate drive that I was trying to install openSUSE 12.2 Rc1 on. The installation concluded without any problems, but on trying to reboot, there was a "no operating system found" from the BIOS.

This is not the fault of the installation DVD, or the computer, as I used the same equipment to install on a different drive, and it went without a hitch. By the way the 12.2 Rc1 is a beauty, and
appears to be much faster than the previous version. The Seagate however does not appear to be able to implement a boot sector with other distro's either. Sofar I tried "Active Killdisk" as well as "DEBAN" to completely clean the drive, as well as Seagate's own utility to 0 overwrite track 0, but it does not change the outcome.

Is there anything else I can try before comitting the thing to the ocean?

I know this may sound weird, but try using a different ata or sata cable (you didn't specify which your using)
I've had the same issue come up in the past and frequently found this to be the/a fix. Not saying it'll work everytime ,but still worth a try.

welan wrote:

I know this may sound weird, but try using a different ata or sata cable (you didn't specify which your using)
I've had the same issue come up in the past and frequently found this to be the/a fix. Not saying it'll work everytime ,but still worth a try.

Thanks for that tip! You sent me looking in the right direction. I am using CRU Dataport removable drive kits. (Not a fan of multi-boot) Something seems to have gone wrong with the tray I was using for that drive. That's a very rare occurence, the first one in about ten years. Maybe they are getting old like me.