odd problem with booting

Im a new technician in business for myself and I have come across something i've never seen before. This guy has an e-machine and it would turn off after it got past the bios screen. I let it sit in bios setup for a while to see if it would stay on and it did. I thought it was the hard drive so I took the hard drive home and plugged into a computer I know works, it did the same thing on my computer. That is, cuts off once the OS starts to load. So, I bought a new hard drive and plugged it up, he said he wanted to reinstall the OS himself so I left after i hooked it up and he called me saying it still cuts off when he gets to the first install screen for reinstalling vista. I have no idea what to do now. It a seagate sata hard drive, the new and replaced one.

 

I would run MemTest on the computer in question. If it passes that, try formating the new hard drive, or replacing it and see what it does. Sounds like they might not be installing the OS right.

Sorry I don't have any definitive answer for you. Posting to subscribe to the thread, I have not seen this either.

 

Yea I think Im going to take my hard drive over there just to see if it works with mine. This problem is so weird I wouldn't be surprised if I bought a broken hard drive. I'll post again on sunday when I go get the computer back.

 

Might also want to check on any SATA drivers that may be required.

 

ok I have this computer at my house now, I tried putting in 3 different hard drives and they all did the same thing, which was cut off. Then I tried those 3 hard drives in my computer and the original one they had didnt work still, but the other two did which makes me think there might be two broken parts in this computer... Could the processor be messed up? Or would nothing turn on if that was the case?

 

I tested with a new power supply, nothing. Another fan, Nothing. Went into bios and it saw the hard drive. I tried booting into multiple OS's so its not my CD. Also tried replacing the sata cable just because I couldn't think of anything else to do. I cant run anything on the computer, all its able to do is boot into bios without shutting down.... Any ideas?