Hi,

I'm hoping this can be diagnosed without specs because the computer came custom designed, and I don't have the specs handy anywhere. The only way I could possibly list them all is if the computer would actually boot up. But that's why I'm here.

Last night, I turned off my computer and went to bed, everything was normal. Then I woke up this morning and tried to power it back on, but it won't boot, and this is all that happens:

1) The CPU fan comes on and stays on.
2) The hard drive light comes on immediately, but then stays solid. No BIOS, nothing at all. Just a blank screen. The computer will stay like this for as long as it's powered on.
3) Keyboard lights come on and stay on.
4) Checked all the motherboard connections, hard drive connection, everything is normal.
5) Computer gives off a weird odor now, like the smell of permanent marker.
5) Computer stays in this idle state with the hard drive light solid until I get sick of looking at it and I turn it back off.

One thing---last night before I shut down the computer, I disconnected my mouse while still running the OS (Windows XP). I then shut down the computer without plugging it back in, and as luck would have it, the mouse was taken from my desk, and I don't know where it is. How likely is it that this is the cause of the entire problem?

Because really, I've had similar experience like this before where the BIOS wouldn't even load, just sat there at a black screen, and a friend of mine said it was probably the BIOS itself or the hard drive, but definitely something with the hardware itself.

Thoughts? Everything is on that computer. I don't know what I'm going to do if the hard drive is shot. I'm desperate for help.