Sorry, no idea what the real problem is about. But I have some information
which might be helpful once you solved the main problem.
> I'm installing another jard drive in a customer's computer. The machine
is
> a 486, and the only hard disk is roughly 500+ MB. I put in the new disk,
If the BIOS fails to recognoize teh full capacity of the new hard disk,
you might need to get a "Disk Manager" software from the manufacturer of
the hard drive. This software will act as a BIOS extension, allowing it
to handle large disks. If the BIOS does not recognize the new HD at all,
the old 500MB drive may have to remain as the primary boot drive in the
computer, as the disk manager has to be loaded from somewhere (it will
substitute the original boot block). Of course, this means something like
the old HD has to be in "master mode" and the new one in "slave mode" or
on the secondary IDE bus, if the computer has this.
> and hooked everything up, and the machine won't show any video display. I
> suspect that it's also not booting, but I don't know that for sure.
This is usually not an effect of inserting a new HD. Even if the HD is
hooked up way wrong, the built-in BIOS will initialize the video output
in standard VGA (text) mode (and display an error message or such).
> In this process, I detached the floppy drive cable. I'm fairly sure I've
> put it back the correct way, and I have tried it in all possible
> combinations of positions.
If the LED of the floppy drive is permanently on, the cable is attached the
wrong way. If you insert a floppy disk in the drive while the cable is
attached the wrong way (and the computer is powered on), it will be ERASED!
See, big penalty for a little error.... :-(
> I did not notice (when I initially opened the box) any ribbon cables from
> the CD ROM to the sound card. In the process of trying to get it to show
a
> display, I have hooked up one.
This should also not cause the problem of getting no video. The BIOS,
which initialized the video adapter after power-up, doesn't care about
sound cards or attached CD-ROMs. The beeps are produced by the historical
IBM PC compatible sound hardware (the so-called "internal speaker",
although some sound cards route the output from this "sound device"
though their internal mixer).
> What I get when I start it up is either 2 beeps in quick succession, and
> then evenly spaced beeps about .75 to 1.0 secs apart, or just the evenly
> spaced beeps - depending on the way I have the floppy drive ribbon cables
> hooked up. No video display. In the process of swapping things around, I
The beeps are error messages from the BIOS. What these mean, is dependent
on the manufacturer of the BIOS. They are there to give a hint at what's
wrong even when there's no video output. Unfortunately, most BIOS
manufactureres make a big secret of the meaning of these codes, so if
you don't find it on the website of the BIOD manufacturer, you might have
to search for other sites with computer BIOS or hardware information.
Also, the video output is not dependent on the having a floppy drive
attached ot not - the BIOS should initialize the video output anyway,
and (if it really insists on a floppy drive) display an error message
(or just go on with booting if it doesn't care about the floppy drive).
Anyway, the beeps indicate that the CPU is running and executing the
BIOS program.
> noticed that the PCI video card had wiggled part way out of its slot.
When
> it was that way, and when I turned the power on, I didn't get the beeps,
but
> I didn't get any video, either. When I pushed the card back in, I started
> getting the beeps again at attempted startup, and still no video.
The video card might have get damaged. You might try to insert an other
video card. While it won't be able to boot Windows or whatever, it
should at least display the text mode output during the BIOS self-test,
so you can tell if the original video card is damaged or not.
An other cause of problems might be the RAM; make sure that it is
inserted correctly.
> "The kaboom! Where's the kaboom?! There was
> supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
Uh, I thought you wanted to increase the HD capacity of the machine. If
want a kaboom, you might consider to purchase pyrotechnical effects from
a pro light supply store. They are usually electrically ignited (9V are
sufficient in most cases) and reasonably safe for you, if you are at a safe
distance (they are also a bit expensive, though). Also, being "safe" does
not mean that they won't do damage to their surrounding. They get rather
hot (capable of melting plastic) and also produce permanent stains
(discolorations, usually white-ish, not black, as one might expect) on
nearby things.
Hope that helps a bit.
Best regards, Klaus
