'99 Discovery 2 acts like battery is dead

[NateJ]

New Disco owner here, only had it for a few weeks and everything was going great until the key started to not turn all the way off so as to be removed.  Shifter was not going into park properly, indicator light was not coming on so I fiddled around a little, got the light to come on and the key came out as usual.  I then replaced the shifter with one that came with the Rover when we got it.  Now it's acting like the battery is dead, the engine turned over slowly a few times and then nothing, radio faded out, and dome light is dim.  I tried jumping it with another car with no luck, put the charger on it overnight but still nothing.  Battery tests out at 12+ volts.

It doesn't seem like a fuse issue to me as it wasn't instantaneous and the dome light still works, only dimly.  I did find 2 positive wires coming off the battery that must've been hooked up to something the previous owner removed, they were left exposed, free to make contact with anything they bumped into, could this have caused a short?  The rig worked fine when I parked it and started a few times before I switched the shifter so it hadn't been bouncing around to cause one of those wires to make any new contacts.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm not too familiar with these rigs yet and I need to get it running before the mice move in and start wrecking havoc.

Thanks for any help or advice you all might have.

Nate.

[sierrafery]

Measure voltage on the battery with ignition on crank and if the voltage drops hard you need a new battery.

[dave88sw]

Make sure you have a good connection on the battery terminals.  Then, try putting a jump lead between the battery negative and the engine, the lifting eye is usually a decent place.  If that works, you have a broken/poor earth wire.