Compaq Desktop Refuses to boot

[CombinationZero]

Long story short, Its an old computer thats been lying around and so I decided I would fix it up. Bought some new ram and got an old CD-Rom drive and a 80gb Hard Drive (formatted) and both of these are IDE.

Turned the PC on and shows the Compaq Screen and detects my Hardrive but not my CD drive then moves to the Detecting Array screen And stays there. I did some brief googling and I found a couple of suggestions which I'm going to attempt now.

Any help would be great

 

[Tmagic650]

The CMOS battery may be dead... Try resetting the CMOS and reset the time and date

 

[raybay]

If the drive was formatted in another computer, you will need to reformat in that computer, or install your windows recovery or restore disk in "Repair" mode (Not Repair Console mode).
Also, old optical drives are notorious for failure if they sit around for a long time. Be sure you are installing Windows with a reliable cd drive.

 

[CombinationZero]

Ok Thanks for your help guys, I'll try these tonight.

EDIT: Yes it was the CD drive thank you for your help

And is it possible for a PC to work with a CPU that has one bent pin?
Don't tell me isn't because Its happened right here :O

 

[raybay]

only a few of the pins are actual linked to electronic processes. The rest are merely for alignment... but the CPU doesn't like to have any pins cut off or broken off so use great care.

 

[CombinationZero]

Well I suppose I got lucky

 

[raybay]

Most everything involved with using or modifying a computer involve good luck or bad luck.