After I built my new computer (with a friends help, so much that I don't know how to really do it) my previous computer just sat for 3 months.

Now, I don't remember wiping it, reformating, or any such thing. In fact, we left everything just in case there was something I missed that I needed.

I took it out to a friends house because she was going to buy it from me. They don't game so it would be a perfect computer for them. I plugged everything in and windows didn't load. I got a copyright screen.

Okay, maybe on the last trip, I decided everthing was find and we did do something to wipe my old stuff off.

So we put in her windows XP disk to load her computer. Nothing happened. We tried turning it off and restarting it with the disc in. Still nothing. Just the same copyright screen.

I'm guessing I'll have to wait a bit. No one is on that has any clue what this means just yet.

A picture would help. Like a phone camera or something.

Black screen. Say Intel blah blah blah bios.
Build ########
Disassemby and something not permissable.
Copyright ####


But it is NOT the BIOS screen.

It's probably the boot-up summary screen, where the BIOS does all of its pre-flight checks like the CPU and RAM.

Either it's just taking a little longer to make sure some component in the computer is problem-free, or something's happened to make the BIOS halt everything.

Did the computer make any beeping noises? If so, that's the BIOS telling you there's a problem with your hardware setup. It could be minor, but then again it could be some pretty serious stuff.

Make sure you don't have any USB devices plugged in such as an iPod, Zune, flashdrive, external harddrive etc. Also check to make sure there is no CD in the Disk Drive.

See if there is a key to press for bios options, go into that and change the boot sequence of your drives so that your CD-Rom boots first in the sequence. When you boot it up again with the CD in the tray it will ask you to 'Boot from disk: press any key' or something along those lines, press any key and you will go through the windows setup again (do not use recovery console!). This is where you reinstall or repair windows.

There are no keys options to press. No way to get into the bios itself.

I tried to boot with the cd in the tray. Didn't do anything. Just the same copyright info screen.

Finally reached the guy who helped me build my new computer. (Only he did most the building and I learned very little -- not what I had in mind.) He thinks it might be this battery that is on the motherboard. He thinks that since it has been sitting for three months, it hasn't been charged like it should and that might be the problem.

That is highly likely, I completly over-looked that it had been sitting for a few months. That would probably be your problem. As far as fixing it, do a google search...I'm not so good when it comes to hardware issues as they account for very few computer problems.

If the capacitor on the motherboard is bad, the computer should still boot up. You could try taking the capacitor out and waiting 30 seconds to 1 minute and put it back in. Just make sure that the computer is turned off and unplugged. The capacitor looks kind of like a wider, thiner watch battery.

Do you have an internal speaker in the computer? Do you hear any beeping? Can we get a picture of what the screen you are seeing looks like?

Sounds like the computer is stuck on the POST or graphics POST.

Take out your RAM, wipe with tissue (gently) & re-seat. Works 40% of the time for problems like that (I'm a techie). Make sure there's no dust in the RAM Bay(s).


EDIT:
Oh, and it won't be the (CMOS) battery or a capacitor (wtf?) as above. You can't remove & re-fit capacitors. CMOS Battery dead would just be annoying - settings wouldn't save in the CMOS & you would have to keep either pressing F1 or re-setting options in the BIOS.

EDIT2 (lol):
Motherboard batteries (CMOS Batteries) also don't recharge whilst the computer is on. They aren't rechargeable.

take your cpu out and re plug it in...if thats not working then you havent wiped anything and you have parts that are illegal, stolen, or somthin. can you change your boot-up sequence to disc first and then drive? im at a loss

Got it fixed. Turned out one of the memory cards went bad. Or something. Anyway, took out one of the cards and it worked fine.