This is why I hate used pc's

[Cowmill45]

I have a circa early 2000's pc, and i had some issues with the CPU overheating. I recently found out one of the heatsink pins had broken, causing a gap between the copper and cpu. After i fixed this, I put the parts back together and it posted, but didnt detect the hard drive. I made sure the wires were plugged in and tried again, still didnt post. So, I tried a different ribbon cable. It got stuck on the bios opening frame, and I noticed the heatsink was getting a little more warm than usual. Any ideas?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It's ancient, so you have to expect lots of problems. I wouldn't be surprised if the PSU by now is done for and could have caused your freeze in the BIOS.

 

[Mark RM]

that's probably not the heatsink causing it not to post, it's likely not communicating with the HD. Is the drive connected via IDE cable? Has it got jumpers on it? did you try the second cable position on the drive?