How Can I Bring My Computer Back From The Dead, Please Help

Dead Computer: My dear friend as you are saying that the orange light stays lit so it means that your harddisk is working and actually when you press the start button of your computer you will see two lights the orange which indicates the harddrive and the green which indicates the computer power is on. You didn't mention that is your monitor light is green or its orange if its orange it means that the monitor is not receiving signals from CPU.

In this case there could be problem in your harddrive or either in the RAM (Random Access Memory) or there is another possibility that your VGA (Video Graphic Adapter) is having some problem, the way you have explained the question I think you should check the IDE cables change the slots of the RAM or if possible change the RAM that might solve the problem, there is another possibility as well if your harddrive and CD-ROM is connected on one IDE cable check out the jumper setting whether its implemented correctly or not. But in your case it seems that there is problem in your harddrive or either in your RAM (Random Access Memor).

To resolve this problem I would take the following steps:

1)  Check the power supply.  Often a computer you bought from a store somewhere is optimized to have as small a power supply as it can get away with, and when you add another drive it cannot meet the demand.  To test this, remove the power plug (not necessary to remove the data cable for this test) from the new drive and see if the computer boots at all.  You will probably see errors and fail to boot completely, but you should at least see the POST (Power On Self Test).  It is possible that you have your computer set for a silent boot - i.e. it does not display its POST (Power On Self Test) results, but you should get the green light on the power supply and some sort of text or graphic on the screen.

2)  If number 1 does not narrow the problem down to your power supply, try putting your system back the way it was.  If it works, this will let you know that nothing actually was damaged.  If it does not work, then you know that some component other than the new hard drive is at fault.  It may have failed because of ESD (static discharge) or just from being bumped around a bit during the assembly process.

3)  Assuming everything works when put together the old way, I would check, double-check, then check again the way the jumpers and cables are assembled with the new drive.  An incorrect cable or jumper should not prevent your computer from at least booting into the memory test, etc., but it is possible.  Remember that the stripe on a ribbon cable goes toward the pin #1, usually marked with a tiny number somewhere on the board near the connector.

4)  If the old configuration works, try going online for research about your motherboard and BIOS.  Sometimes an older machine will need a BIOS update to handle a newer piece of hardware.

5)  If all else fails, meaning you cannot get the computer to work with the new drive or without, you will have to look into more expensive options.  In my own case, I have enough other old parts laying around that I could start swapping them one at a time to test for the problem part.  If you do not have that option, try talking to a friend with a similar machine.  You could try buying a larger power supply, in case the extra load actually burned the old one out.  As a last resort, it sounds like a repair shop visit might be in your future.

Good Luck!