PC won't boot - any ideas?

Ok I'm just fishing for ideas because I can only be quite vague about the pc setup.

I've been using a 2nd hand pc that isn't up to much. I can get by but the main issue for me is that my own music / photos etc are on a separate IDE HDD.
Today I opened the case to find it had 2 SATA drives installed and the only IDE device was a DVD/CD writer.
I set the jumpers on my drive to slave and plugged it in as a secondary device, making sure it was detected in the BIOS.
On booting, I got the Blue Screen Of Death.
Reboot, same issue.
I then tried making it the Primary IDE and first boot device, it has XP on it after all so I hoped it was bootable. It reached the black XP loading screen but was 'loading' forever so I gave up.
I removed the drive and returned everything to normal, including setting the BIOS to it's defaults.
Now on startup, it doesn't get as far as the XP screen, I'm left with a black screen with a cursor blinking in the top left corner.

At some point I really want to access my old HDD as it has a lot of photos on it but priority now is to get this PC to boot!

Any ideas?

Oh, it appears my XP disk has vanished, my ex must have it :/

Keep pressing F12 after you switch on, which should take you to the boot menu. Then choose your present op-sys from the choices.

Alternatively try slippers  

F12 does nothing. I can access the boot menu using Esc but it just asks which drive I want to boot. As I've removed my IDE drive, it gives me the option of 1.
Same problem.

If you returned the bios to defaults, it should boot in the order of CD/USB then HD. Make sure you didn't leave a disk in your dvd/cd writer.

I take it the slippers didn't work either mate

Nah, nothing in the drive.
Slipper, trainer and right knee have all failed.

This is what happens with "Progress"

Remember the 3.5" floppy drive, and you had a separate Boot disc. 

All gone now.. I guess you need a Computer geek with a screwdriver.

Good luck.

It's getting worse. Now when I power up it's just bleeping at me. Single bleep about 1 second with 3 seconds between each one.

Try pressing f8(safe mode)if it loads drivers at least you know its getting past the initial bios. If it doesn't then it has to be either something you have changed in your bios or you have fu**ed up the master slave bit when restoring back to original.   

Can't get it to do anything other than beep at me! :@

I don't think its booting then mate


I would go back and check that you did infact undo all the changes you made. If that doesn't work, put the old IDE HD back in, but as MASTER. Use that to boot from, and take it from there.   

Yeah, tried that. That's when the bleeping started so now I can't get into the BIOS / Boot menu.

Try my weapon of choice Rep...

Assuming you've just put a picture up, I can't see it on my phone :/

Its a big HAMMER .

It's letting me back into the BIOS now. Still can't get it to boot with all the original hardware in

Assuming you've just put a picture up, I can't see it on my phone :/

Its a hammer and im sorry to hear about your pc. :/

Unplug a stick of your RAM. If it doesn't boot, try unplug the other one.

If that fails, unplug all optical drives except the hard-drive.

If that fails, it's probably either the Power Supply or Motherboard.

Only just seen this, Res, I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know.

Well I've tried swapping out just about everything one by one with no success!

I doubt its ram, mine failed a few days ago and I was getting b.s.o.d and other errors rather than a straight failure to boot and a flashing curser.

If you have access to another comp, try making a copy of Hirens boot disk http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd and see how you get on.

Wow, that's a lot of utilities! Not sure where or when I'll be able to download it but worth a try if I get chance, cheers.

I didn't think it would be RAM either considering it was running (just about) before I tried installing my old IDE HDD.

 I could send you a copy of Windows (legal) XP or Vista if thats any help ?   

A copy of XP would be fantastic, yeah. I did have a genuine copy but as I said, I'm assuming I must have left it at my ex's house 
As I had to use a solicitor to get my TV back, I'm not going to knock on and ask for my that,