The power on self test looks at the RAM, disc drives, and all of the peripheral devices and if there is a failure in any of these it will fail to start without at least prompting.
This computer is what seven or eight years old? If you have to replace any parts it won't be cost effective to invest anymore money in this machine.
Another issue here is taking the hdd and installing it in another computer, if you install it in another computer with a different motherboard as a master you may have damaged the operating system. When a hdd is installed with one motherboard it will recognize the chipset of that motherboard, and when you introduce another motherboard with a different chipset it confuses the OS and can even be fatal for it.
dcc
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