Cannot boot

I have an older HP computer, 500g hd, 4g RAM, I3 cpu. when I boot up I get the message press "ESC key to enter startup". I have tried another good HDD and still get the message. Any help appreciated.

 

Thanks, the computer is a desktop, where would the cmos battery be ?

 

when you say you tried another known good hdd,did it have windows installed on it or are you trying to reinstall windows?did it boot fine before?what were the circumstances leading up to this problem?sorry,more questions than answers.lol.also,what operating system are you running?

 

Thanks.The hdd had Win8.1, no previous issues.

 

if the hdd came of a pretty much identical computer it may boot,but not likely.what led up to the old hdd not booting?if nothing else you could reinstall windows to that second drive and recover your files from the old one.which windows are you running?

 

Thanks, The problem I am having was the reason I tried a different HDD. Cannot get it to anything, tried hitting ESC, F8 , Window-B combo when rebooting, none worked.

 

trying to boot with another hdd with windows on it will almost never work.what i am trying to get at is,the circumstances under which the problem started.its starting to look like you need to reinstall windows on the second drive and transfer any files etc you need from the original.

 

Thanks. There were no problem, it just came on. I cannot reinstall Windows, as I can't get it out of the mode it's in now

 

you will have to go into the boot menu or bios on startup and set your operating systems install media (cd,dvd,or usb)to boot from.then you simply follow the prompts to install the os to your hdd.post your operating system and we can get a wee bit more specific.lol

 

Cannot get into bios, its stuck with the error message.

 

is this a laptop or desktop?

 

Desktop

 

restart the pc and press f10 to enter boot menu.not meaning to be snarky,but getting info here is like pulling hens teeth.you havent mentioned your os.lol

 

Better to post the error message as well yes,keeping info like that to yourself is just plain greedy

 

disconnect everything from pc then open it up and take out RAM for a min or two then replace it hook everything back up then try it

 

Won't work if a ram stick is faulty,however your on the right track.Leave one of the sticks out then reboot.If it beeps switch sticks,if still no go try the other slot with only 1 stick etc.However it may not ram related

 

I had hp desktop that i wanted to put new OS on and it wouldn't boot from tray and you couldn't get into bio's and i took out the ram started it turn it back off replaced the ram started it again and was able to go into bio's and change boot menu