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I then installed as before; two partitions only 2GB of swap, but using a DOS MBR instead of GPT. The result - exactly the same result.
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OK, then the only logical explanation is that the BIOS is actually getting through POST, then failing to boot.
I had interpreted your problem description and test results to mean that during problem isolation testing that you had configured your BIOS to boot from alternate media (another hard drive, optical media, NIC, diskette) and the machine would not boot from that alternate media if the hard drive was attached. That is what led me to a hardware problem.
If you did not test this, please do so, to confirm that BIOS completed POST with the drive attached, and that the symptom's root cause was just a hang of the OS on boot.
On a GPT drive, LBA #0 would contain a "Protective MBR" -- an MBR configured with the entire disk in use, and not bootable. Would the MBR program in the first 400 bytes do more than hang? I don't know. Unfortunately, the sum of my entire knowledge of GPT comes from
Wikipedia.
I'm very confused by your test results with an MBR-bootable configuration. In that case, the MBR program should have chain loaded the PBR (first stage boot loader) and that should have chain loaded the second stage boot loader, and that should have loaded the kernel.