I have a Compaq Desktop that I hardly ever use. It sits running. I only have one visual basic billing program that I periodically use. This morning I went to boot it and got an error message that the file windows 2000 root\system32\ntoskrnl.exe was corrupted and needed to be reinstalled. I booted off of the Win2K CD and tried to repair the disk with no luck. I believe and I/O error message accompanied this. So i decided to take the pc apart to clean out all dust, make sure all cables are seated, no dust in the contacts, etc and then went to reboot. Well now, I get no image on the monitor and the CD sounds like it is spinning up and getting warm but all I get is 2 beeps. I have retraced my steps, thinking that I reassembled the cables incorrectly but I do not think so. I am not sure. There is a separate cable going to the HD, the CDR and the floppy drive. is this correct. Then each gets power and the CDR gets some smaller connectors. i am stumped. I am more of a Mac person so I do not really understand how PCs go together as well. I do know that the cable that goes from the board to the floppy is of a unique size and cannot have been switched by accident. That leaves the CDR and Hard Drive. If anyone can figure out what I may have screwed up, please let me know. BTW, I had a couple of spare HD lying around and tried both of them with the same 2 beeps. I just need to get it running so I can contact Western Digital and see where I go from here. Please help if you can.

Check, whether the RAM is seated correctly. Two beeps means Parity Error.

Did that already. Did not solve the problem.

Have you also tried to disconnect CDR and hard drive and then start the machine, to figure out, whether maybe one of the drive do make a short circuit on the bus?

Pardon my ignorance, but I do not even know what you are talking about. if I disconnect the hard drive and cd and then boot, what am i looking for.

Whether you get the beeps ?!? I forgot to mention.