Unable to boot from hard drive (not a hard drive problem)

[Chao06]

I got a new motherboard recently (Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF) and have been having issues booting from a hard drive. I can boot from a CD just fine (using the IDE connection) and install Debian without any hitch, but when I go to boot from the hard drive (one of the SATA connections) it says

No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key

I've tried two different hard drives, and I've tried using both msdos and GUID partition tables.
When I try booting from a USB (Ubuntu 11.04 installed to USB using unetbootin) it says

Boot error
No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key

I've checked and double checked by BIOS configuration, but I haven't been able to find anything wrong. I've changed the boot order to have the HDD or USB at the top (though that shouldn't make a difference) with no success.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be? I'm at a complete loss in trying to figure out what's wrong or what to try next.

Thanks in advance,
David

[hans51]

just a guess
it may be a HW recognition problem with your new motherboard
you mentioned nowhere your linux dist

for example opensuse would have a rescue system (NOT the rescue mode to manually fix stuff) to RUN and fix system like recognize HW and add proper drivers, etc

if your dist offers such option, then run it without changing actual installed packages

[Chao06]

Well, as I said, my distro is Debian, though the problem isn't with the OS at all. The problem is that it's not booting from anything but the optical drive, so doing anything with the OS I'm pretty sure would be futile.

I think the next thing I'll try is installing on an IDE hard drive on another computer using a generic kernel, then transfer the drive to this computer, seeing as the only thing that's booting is the IDE device...

[rokytnji]

I spent a whole day with a problem like yours but it was a all IDE Motherboard/Desktop.

Had to do with Slave/Master/Cable Select Pin jumping I realize sata connections don't require this.
But if I was you. First I would check bios to make sure drive is recognized in the proper bytes.
Also check said drive in Gparted with a Linux live cd to make sure it matches bios in size and is recognized by linux
as a recognizable file system (without the warning triangle) in properties.

Lastly, I would install lshw during a live session and run it to see that all components are recognized also.

I could go into more detail about how confusing my readouts were when my IDE configuration was wrong. But that won't help
with a sata setup and is pretty much irrelevant to this thread.

[rcgreen]

It could be one of a couple of possibilities. Maybe something
simple like failing to install the bootloader on the hard drive.

Or it could be a nasty SATA issue like we used to have a few
years back. Some times there is a setting in the BIOS,
something like "legacy mode" or something, or having to
boot from a floppy to load a driver before installing the OS!

On one forum a person suggested that this motherboard
insists on finding a bootable partition on the hard drive,
even though, strictly speaking, Linux doesn't need one.

[Chao06]

rcgreen: Thanks, turns out the issue was the lack of a boot flag... And it also doesn't seem to recognize the boot flag in a GUID partition table : / Also, thanks everyone for replying : )