help! i killed my computer somehow

[rabbitz]

i dont know much bout computers, but i need help fixing one
i was messin around with the pins in my computer (award something or other, with a p3) when the processor fan sparked and stopped running.. and started smelling bad

it worked but the fan wouldnt turn, so i tried to pull the fan out and replace it with another one from another computer, but in the process of trying to pry it out with a screwdriver and pencil, i think i accidentally jabbed my motherboard. I replaced the fan, and accidentally left the ram out (had to remove it to get the fan out) and it started beeping.. so i replaced the fan with the old non-working one, put the ram back in and now my computer wont start (the leds are always on - even when the computer is "off", the harddrives + cd drives start up and everything seems to be working properly except for the fan, and theres no beeping sound, and no signal to my monitor)

[Rueful Rogue]

i dont know much bout computers

After reading this post, I really believe you. Why were you inside the computer "messing with the pins" in the first place? After all you have done, if the computer is still able to boot up, you risk loosing your main processor chip without the fan running. So, I'd recommend not running the PC until you get the fan replaced.

When you did replace the fan and forgot to put in the RAM, why didn't you just put in the RAM rather than put the old (non-working) fan back, and then replacing the RAM?

I'm about as confused as you are. I think that you have already damaged the main processor chip.

[rabbitz]

ok well heres waht happened so far:

i changed the motherboard + processor to some amd k6 or something... but kept all the old card thingies (rage 128, sound, ethernet, something)

now, the harddrive that was originally with the amd works, but my cdrom drives dont work, my floppy drive is defective and winxp on the newer harddrive (the pentium 3 one) wont load. It loads up to mup.sys, or agp440.sys sometimes, but i read up on it and people say its not the software error, its some kind of hardware error

so basically the only thing thats changed in this computer is a new motherboard and new processor, do i need to reformat my hd? and how do i get all my stuff out?

for some strange reason, the hard drive im using now (the amd one) runs as a primary slave, and wont boot if its set to master so i cant set my other hd to slave and copy the stuff off it

does changing processors mean u have to reformat the hard drive? or reinstall winxp?

i hear running dskchk.exe or something with the -r parameter works but then id need to boot it with a winxp cd, which i dont have, not to mention the not working cdrom drives.

help t_T

[Rueful Rogue]

If you changed the motherboard, you also changed the BIOS along with it (it's part of the MB). If your boot up is not recognizing CD-ROM drives and such, you need to start there. During initial boot up you can enter the "setup" which gets you into the BIOS and from there you can designate the order in which the boot up looks at both CD/DVD ROM drives and HDD's. I'd start there.

Then if you have not corrupted the HD's files, once you set the BIOS to boot from the drive that has your Operating System on it, you should be fine. If you reformat the HD, you'll loose your OS and you already said you don't have the disks.

[rabbitz]

it doesnt detect my drives

[Rueful Rogue]

Check to make sure the hard drive cables are correctly orientated and pushed in all the way. Then, set the BIOS to boot from Drive C:/ if that is your hard drive.

[oersin]

same here