Question : Problem: PC Will Not Complete POST

I am working on my mother-in-law's PC which quit working for her.  When booting up, it goes through the initial POST, including the RAM check, but stops at a line stating "Found CD-Rom".  The hard drive was very noisy, so I assumed it was a bad hard drive, so I replaced it.  That stopped the noise, but the PC still stops at the same point during the POST.   I then assumed that maybe it needed formatting, so I put in a boot disk to start the formatting process--it still stops at the same place without accessing the floppy drive.  So I then went into the BIOS and changed the boot sequence so the floppy would be the first drive accessed--still no change.  I then put in the Windows CD--the CD ROM light comes on, but the PC still stops at the same spot.  

The hard drive light is on continuously and is red--I do not know if it is normally red, but it does not flash when trying to read from the drive during the very initial phases of the POST.  There are no beeps during this partial startup.  I have checked all cables and connections, including the RAM chips, and everything seems secure.

Any ideas of what is happening or what I should do next?

Answer : Problem: PC Will Not Complete POST

You need to try with all IDE devices disconnected first. Basically you want to get to the point where the computer asks for an operating system ("Non-system disk or disk error"). If you get there, you begin hooking up components until you get the hangup back and this will tell you which component is faulty.

You may have a corrupted CMOS, and this can sometimes be cured by a reset. This is done by moving a jumper to the "reset" position, or by removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes.

/RID