On Fri, 21 Jul 2017 12:32:56 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2017 12:06:29 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

But usually if it tries and can't boot it moves on to other boot choices.

Terry never said he had another choice. Try again.
It still moves on to other (nonexistant) choices - will it boot to a
CD? or a stick?.
Can't remember, did he ever get it into the bios setup mode? If not,
my somewhat educated guess is someone bricked the computer attempting
to update the bios. The probability of it being a "custom" bios is
somewhere between extremely unlikely and nil. The beep code pretty
much indicates a hardware problem of some sort - first thing I would
try is pull ALL of the ram and install one stick of known good
compatible ram. See if that gets rid of the beep.
If it's much deeper than that, for that machine, it's not worth
spending any more time or money. Keep the hard drive, battery and
power supply for another project, or keep the whole thing for parts
and find another of the same model (you have a keayboard and display
that works - find one with a bad display, keyboard, or battery cheap)