laptop won't POST with a new harddrive

recently installed a new screen and new harddrive on a laptop. unfortunately it's at my friend's atm so i don't have complete system specs, but basically it won't even POST. i can go into bios but that's it. when it tries to boot it simply gives me a blinking cursor. with a clean HDD with windows installed it gives me the blinking cursor and then says MBR (master boot record?) error.

i've hardly worked with laptops and i've never had this problem with a desktop so i don't know where to start.


Thanks