at one point in my life i hac a very good computer . then my operating system crashed. then my computer wouldnt recognize the drives, so i couldnt re-install the operating system, so i mix and matched, i took the hard disk off a new dell that had a fried motherboard and put it into my computer, and i also swapped out the disk drives to a dvd drive and a burner. now when i try and start my computer the activity light turns on red and nothing happens? a little help please.More info
We'll need the specs on that computer
Does the computer sound like it's booting up? I.e. does the fans and hard drives start spinning?
Do the computer make any beeping noises? yes the fans and hard drives start up, but thats about it, i can open and close the drives, but thats it, i dont know what the specs are, i bought it used for 25 bux, all i know is the new hard drive has WINDOWS xp, and it has a pentium four processor. and two memory sticks in it and whatever else, did i POSSIBLY hook something up wrong?With anything after Win2K you cannot just swap HDD's around from machine to machine...it simply won't work.
Post a lot more DETAILS on the machine and how exactly you would like it to be set up and we can go from there..
If you got a 25 dollar machine with a P4 chip you did pretty well..i bought it from my local library they where going to junk it, all it needed was a reformat and thats where i messed up, i just want it to work again, but i swapped the hdd out with the original one and it STILL didnt work, it just did the same thing. and im pretty sure my disk drives wouldnt have any effect on that would they.As i said state clearly what your goals for the machine are ...what OS ? what drives ? ?
and we can assist further.
What Windows OS are you attempting to install etc...the new hdd has windows xp home , the old one dont have an os period, i was going to install either xp home or milenium what ever one i have sitting in my room, the drives are a dvdrom, and a cd rewriteable blah blah blah im not hardware smart i know about keeping themrunning and programs and stuff but it ends thereSince it is a second hand machine your best bet is to choose what hard drive you want to boot from, install it and format and do a clean install of whatever flavor of Windows you choose.
Anything else and you will be spinning your wheels.
After you get a clean install of Windows up and running i would DLoad, install and run Everest Home and use it to locate all the appropiate drivers for that machine especially the MBoard drivers...

Good Luck and let us know.but thats the whole problem, there is nothing. the activity light in the tower is red stays red the screens stays black the monitor light dont even turn green it stays orange. i cant do a thing untill this problem is fixed.Read your first post and see if you would be confused...
All i can tell right now is a bunch of drives have been swapped into a machine that came from a library and it's still not working.
If i missed something i apologise.ok i can understand why your confused. your probably just as confused as me. here is the scenario. when i try to power up my computer, nothing happens. it turns on, the drives power up and start spinning, but nothing happens. i dont know how to explain this, but on a normal working computer, there is a green light with a cylinder looking symbol by it, some times it turns orange some times its green. well on mine its red. nothing shows up on the monitor, or anything else. i can still open and close my rom drives, but i dont get anything on the monitor. and i know its not the monitor because i have hooked up different ones and still nothing shows up on them there is no activity in my computer, is it posible that when i took my PROCESSER out it screwed something up? some wires where under the bracets so i had to take it out to get them out.The red light means the hard drive is not being read properly...
It's either hooked up incorrectly; the jumpers aren't set properly or the drive itself is no good and has failed.well the jumpers are not it, and the drive worked right at one point but now it wont. i switched the jumpers and thepower connections and still nothing, but now the red light dont come on, butnothing is showing up on my moniter and the moeter light is orange but i dont get anylights on the computer eccept one gren light on the motherboard by my proccesser.