power to the hard drive

[Tumbleweedracef]

Hello good folks at Dani Web !!!!
I hope I'm posting this in the right place, if I'm not, let me know and I'll repost it where I'm supposed to.
I have a Dell Dimention 3000, Windows XP Home, 2.8GHz, 80 GIG hard drive
A friend of mine gave me this computer and said his nephew messed it up. Said he was installing some kind of video card and the computer blew.
When I first turned it on, all I got was a blinking yellow light on the front. None of the 4 lights on back came on. I unplugged the hard drive(power), and removed the ribbon wires to the hard drive also. It came on and went into BIOS. I plugged JUST the power cord back into the hard drive and all I got was the blinking yellow light on front again. I plugged JUST the ribbon in without the power to the hard drive and it came on and went into BIOS. So, JUST by putting power to the hard drive messes this computer up, is there a way to fix this or do I just need to purchase another hard drive,( USED) ?
Any and all help is very much appreciated !!!!

[HoustonIT]

This could be either a hard drive problem or a power supply problem. I suggest you try another hard drive in the system to better isolate the problem. Just connect the power though, if you boot another hard drive into Windows you might hose to OS!

[Tumbleweedracef]

This could be either a hard drive problem or a power supply problem. I suggest you try another hard drive in the system to better isolate the problem. Just connect the power though, if you boot another hard drive into Windows you might hose to OS!

Thanks for your reply Houston !!
I did try another power supply and got the same results. I believe it's a bad hard drive and I'll start shopping for an affordable new/used one, THANKS !!!!!!
Thanks again for all the help on DaniWeb !!!!