USB HDD wierdness but pen drive is fine?

[flip2892]

Hi, I've been running 8.10 (beta) off of an 8gb USB stick for a couple of weeks now (with very few issues...fewer than with windows) Missus will not let me strip windows so I decided to install to a 40gb usb drive so as to have better speed and more head room. Installed as per my usb stick install but it will not boot. It just says no bootable sector, which I can't work out as I removed all other drives (usb pen drive and internal HDD) when I installed to ensure boot sector would be on the usb hdd.
If I boot via usb stick then the usb hdd is there and can be opened etc???
What is going wrong? Any ideas greatfully recieved.
Thanks in advance.
flipper

[flip2892]

Don't know if this helps anyone to ttell me what's wrong? I'm begining to think it's a hardware/bios issue????
flipper


flipper@flipper-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd0f4738c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 160649 80293+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 160650 149998904 74919127+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 149998905 156296384 3148740 db CP/M / CTOS / ...

Disk /dev/sdb: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 974 cylinders, total 15663104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4114400b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 14892254 7446096 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14892255 15647309 377527+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 14892318 15647309 377496 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders, total 78140160 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe127e2b8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 63 74846834 37423386 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 74846835 78140159 1646662+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 74846898 78140159 1646631 82 Linux swap / Solaris
flipper@flipper-laptop:~$