Toshiba A40 Satellite won’t POST

I have a couple of A40-S260s my office was throwing out. No HD. I installed a hard drive in both. Got the 1st one up and works fine. The second when plugging the power supply I get a green power LED and amber battery. I wait for things to settle and then press the power on button. The amber LED goes out and the green power LED turns amber and blinks. That’s it. Repeated power pressing does nothing. You must remove the battery and ac power to stop the amber LED. Reseach says this flashing indicates “standby” mode. I cannot get to the bios setup with the usual F1 or esc. I have seen this behavior before with Toshibas, never saw a resolution. Any help here?