I have a system which needed the hard drive to be replaced. The cables inside were cluttered so I ended up removing the disk and power cables and rearranging them to allow for better air flow. The HDD is connected to the primary IDE. The 2 cd drives are connected to the secondary. Upon boot I get 3 beeps. The hard drive makes some noise. The monitor does get a signal but it's empty. The floppy light does not come on either. Any idea of what the problem could be? Thanks in advance.

Beep Codes depend on your BIOS version. Here is a listing:

Additional information on computer POST / Beep Codes.

Did you make sure the cables went back with red edge towrds the power supply cable? Did you do anything to the floppy cable? Are you sure all conections are tight? Both at the board & the drives? Make sure no pins got bent?

Make sure your RAM & CPU are seated correctly. Cards too.

To test stuff you can unplug everything again and try one drive at a time.

Does your BIOS Post at all? Or just beeps and blank?

Do you know the make of your BIOS? If not post your system specs and maybe someone can determine it.

Thanks. I'll try all that. The trouble is the system is not mine so I don't have all the specs. The connections have all been checked and double checked. The motherboard is a VIA (or at least the chip on the board is) and the exact beep pattern is two quick short beeps. Than a pause. Than another short beep...