5 months ago I replaced timing belt and water pump. A week ago we had alot of noise in timing cover, I pulled the top cover off to find the belt had alot of slack between cam gears and the belt was slapping the timing cover. The car has got to where it takes longer and longer for it to start up. So I pulled the the entire timing cover. The timing tensioner had gone bad. Allowing the the cams to get out of time.

When I removed the old belt , the cams spun and the crank turned. I did not have my timing Mark's lined up. I reset the timing. I do not know how to tell if the #1 cylinder is on compression or exhaust stroke. I aligned all timing Mark's as I had done before. Car wouldnt start, I tried to readjust the timing 5 times and still no start. I tried either but battery is almost dead and had a small backfire as the battery went dead. I know it was on tdc , but how do you know it's on compression stroke before aligning the cams?