Right, here's the story...

I decided that my older Mesh PC (which is obvoiusly out of warranty by now) could be used as a sort of testbed, and have been using it as such for some time now...in fact it's managed to keep some of the components it's been testing, making it pretty nifty at running BF2 and other graphics intensive games

During a test, I put an additional HDD (Maxtor Diamond Max 7200Rpm 80Gb ATA) in, in addition to the current standard Seagate Barracudda 7200.7Rpm 80Gb. On poweron, the computer fans speed up...but nothing happens...at all...

The hard-drive lights then light and stay on for an indefinate time, so I decided to take it out...I've failed that HDD obviously! Now though, it still won't turn on, and even if I switch to KNOWN working components, nothing happens...

I've taken out the battery and must've reset the bios after god knows how many attempts, tried restore jumper positions and set stuff back to defaults but nothing!

Can anyone help?!?! Any suggestions, however simple are very welcome

Thanks for any help!

(I found a suitable icon for the title!)

Sounds like a possible short in your motherboard. Since items directly connected to the power supply work, and nothing else.
Does the heatsink (fan on your processor) start?
I've had a similar issue, and it was my tuner card and frontside Firewire, AND my floppy drive i had fried some how.... ugh... but atleast the computer was fixable!
Try disconnecting your oyther drives and all unnecessary parts in your mobo... don't forget to leave the power switch plugged in.
The confilict was not likely an issue, but the process of installing the drive may have caused static build up somewhere and upon boot it caused a short and now it will not function while that device is still attatched.
*Simple cases first, before resorting to all out havoc and destruction of your computer (j/k)

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</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Hehe, the usual "pep" talk

I've tried removing components, (with the power, lol) and all that, but still no joy. Unfortunately I think it might be a writeoff because of that damn static (as you said!) but there's something which took a slightly more sinister turn the last time I booted it to try some of your suggestions, as I plugged it all back up and there was a big *BANG*, seems my powersupply exploded, and caught fire!

I turned it off at the mains pretty sharpish and it sort of burned out but took a sizable chunk of the mobo's top ports, IDE cables and the RAM...

I've just had someone examine it and it was due to some (presumably, as it's pretty decimated) faulty wiring in the PSU which actually blew the mobo bridges and stopped most of the system from working, except for the single supply devices (like the fans I suppose?)

It did make me jump a hell of a lot though, I've never been that close to something exploding before, but I'm thankful that it was only a small one, and that it was my older mesh rather than the new one or my laptop!

Thanks for your help anyway, much appreciated!

lol