compaq

won't boot

nothing will appear on the monitor

F8 doesn't produce anything on the monitor,either

lights(power and both other disc drives) on the tower flash,and there is a rhythmic clicking NOISE

it's like it keeps going through all the drives,trying to read something/anything

can't get the other 2 drives to eject

i THINK it might be a mechanical problem,maybe something locked up

fan does run when turned on

our LAN first goes through it,and my computer's INTERNET connection is fine,so there is some kind of life to it

i tried to FOOL it by trying to start it with a floppy in what i think is the A drive,the first place it looks

i hoped that would at least produce an error message on the monitor

this same problem has happened before,and it did start working after a few bangs of the fist

this time it happened just after a power outage that happened while it was doing a windows update,but i don't think that caused the problem

i think it is mechanicalThe rhythmic clicking noise is an indication of a failed hard drive.  You may have other components which are also faulty due to the power outage, including your motherboard, video card, etc.

Does the computer use onboard video or an add-on video card?  If a card, you might try to get an OLD one somewhere and install it to see whether you get anything on your screen.  Even if your hard drive has failed, you should see something on screen. 

To test the monitor, hook it up to another computer. 

If you verify the monitor is working, I'd say you've either have a faulty video card, motherboard, or both. 

When you get a working system again, I highly recommend getting a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply, i.e. a battery backup unit).  They'll protect you from a catastrophic power interruption, which seems to be what happened to your system. And swap in a known working PSU of equal or greater wattage to see if it is the culprit.

If so replace it but don't buy a cheap one.