New "used" computer on perpetual reboot

I had an old computer and the motherboard seems to have died while I was away. A friend at work gave me a computer the company was going to throw away. He didn't guarantee it would work but it was something to replace the one I had. I can't afford a new one so have to rely on used for now.

Here is what I have: Intel PIII D815EEA 800EB MHZ motherboard with 256 MB RAM. BIOS EA8150A.86A.031.P07

I put the master hard drive from my old computer in it and it boots to bios the gives me the "windows did not shut down properly" screen. I tell it to boot normally and it tries but it reboots to the bios. If I tell it to boot in safe mode, it tried (shows the list of drivers it is trying to load) and then reboots to bios.

The bois will only recognize the drive if I have it jumped to cable select.

to ensure the drive was not damaged (or XP Home), my neighbor let me put the drive in his computer - it booted fine.

I changed the ribbon cable - still the same problem.

Don't know where to go from here. Any help would be appreciated.

Please keep in mind, I have to get online at the library or at work (on my break or after my shift) so I may not respond right away.

Hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance

Mitch

 

Boy, do I ever feel stupid..........

I didn't think about that, I just put the hard drive in thought it should boot. sorry for being a moron. I would hate to lose the stuff I have on the hard drive but will try a repair install of xp.

Steve, I am about as embarrassed as I can be. Just wasn't thinking. Please forgive my stupidity.

I will report back tomorrow. Time for me to leave work and go home.

Mitch

 

ok, thanks

By the way, while installing XP on the machine, it got two thirds of the way through and then a "com" error flashed on the screen, it rebooted, resumed the install, then did the same thing. My days off are coming up so will have time to play with it.

time to get to work, will report back as I can.

Mitch