nothing will boot…

I’m working on a PC that I cannot get going. The thing was shot, the customer was having boot issues so they tried to run their factory restore disk and reinstall XP. By the time I got it, they had somehow installed 3 copies of XP. It would not boot at all, it would just freeze up at the splash screen. I tried to get into the boot screen a second time and it would not boot at all.

I decided to wipe out the disk and start all over again with a fresh copy of XP. I ran delpart so there is no opsys at all on the disk.

Only now, I cannot get anything to boot. I can’t reformat the disk. It will power up, run the POST (single beep) and then it just sits in the screen that says “hit to enter set up”…. Problem is that the keyboard won’t work. I tried three different keyboards, 2 of them ps/2 and one a USB. The keyboard lights flash during the POST so I know the computer is recognizing it.

But I cannot get into the setup. It won’t read a CD. I tried XP, I tried Fedora Core. I even tried to run a floppy with a DOS boot disk, or a BIOS flash, but it won’t read the floppy either.

Anyone got any suggestions before I declare this motherboard toast?