hard drive failure

i was given a dell inspiron 4300 with no hard drive and was told the old hard drive crashed. I got a new hard drive and now the computer will not start up i turn it on and all i get is an orange light on the system board that says aux pwr and the power button on the front flashes but no fans turn on no beeps nothing

 

Well, you need the Dell install disks as that what was on the old hard disk. You have no operating system.

Oh, welcome aboard.

 

i have the dell install disks but im not getting power anywhere not even the cd drives the fans dont run i cant get a screen nothing except a flashing power button and an orange light on the system board

 

Sorry, check your connections again if you already haven't, you may have moved something. Perhaps initially the PSU went deadish and not the hard drive and the folk didn't realize this at the time, do you have a spare one you could possibly try? Oh, perhaps unplug the second CD drive first and pull any unnecessary card out too, that's happened to me with a weak power supply where the rig just seemingly sat dead.

 

Are you sure it is an Inspiron 4300 and not a Dimension 4300? Do you have 4 diagnostic lights on the back?

 

oops sorry it is a dimension not an inspiron

 

Do you have four diagnostic lights on back? I'm thinking try clearing the CMOS. Follow the one for 4 yellow lights. Look for the RTCRST connector on the motherboard. I can't tell from the pic how many pins you have--is there any writing on the board by the RTCRST jumper conector?

Lights: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4300/codes.htm#1101572
Board: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4300/techov.htm#1101668

 

there are no diagnostic lights on the back. threre is no writing near the RTCRST connecter. how do i reset the CMOS?? sorry Im fairly new to this I just started an Aplus class in December