Red light on motherboard? will not go past dell screen

[sweetchic108]

Hi I am new to this community, but I was hoping someone could help me.

I recently tried to install a drive from a 98 gateway into a 98 dell and one card of memory from the same computer. I did this hoping to utilize the extra storage space on the drive while consolidating space. I had never done this before, but it seemed simple. After completely dismantling the spare part computer, I installed the drive and the new computer started up showing the dell screen, but it stayed there and beeped twice. I thought about it and determined the old operating system was probably still trying to run, so I disconnected the dell's c drive hoping the old one would pen so that I could wipe it clean. This did not work. So I thought it may have been a problem the compatability. I rebuilt the gateway just enough to hook the drive back up hoping to wipe it that way; however, much of the hardware was already being used elsewhere, so I couldn't wipe the drive. I want to get on the internet and search for a way to wipe the drive, so I hooked the dell back up with only it's originals; however I have the same results, two beeps and a dell screen. Any suggestions?

Thanks very much for reading this and for any help you can offer.

 

[TangoTrolly]

I assume you replaced a hard drive on a DELL with Windows 98 with a hard drive with Windows 98 from a Gateway. You can't do that unless you reinstall Windows 98.
I would like to suggest, when you swap parts between computers, that you swap one part at a time. When there is a failure, you will know which part is the culprit.

 

[electroken]

this may help

If you still have the old drive that was in the Dell then put it back in and put everything back the way it was before you started if that is possible. Then put in the extra memory if your system was able to boot up this time. If it still is able to boot up with the extra memory in it, then power down a 3rd time and install the Gateway drive as a second drive. I would put it on with the dvd or cd drive or whatever is on the secondary ide. You must jumper things correctly for this to work. (It doesnt normally matter which drive is where on the cables if they are not using cable select as the jumper setting.)
You should be able to boot up and have the Dell see the extra drive now. At this point, if you do not wish to keep the Dell drive at all, then you can use a program such as Paragon Hard Drive Manager to completely erase the Gateway drive............given that you did not want to save anything from it to the new drive.
You can now clone your old drive to the Gateway and then when it is all done and you can boot up and see that you have two identical drives (same folders etc) then power down and remove the C drive (Dell) and replace it with the Gateway. You should now be ok. It is normally not necessary to change jumpers around on a cd or dvd drive on the secondary unless you had to do it to be able to have the Gateway drive on there.
I hope this can solve your problem for you.