Oh my God I think I've just completely buggered up my laptop. Can anyone help?

[2sugarsagain]

Instead of pressing control escape I accidently pressed control turn off. I now have no screen - well, it's on, but it's blank, IYSWIM. Can anyone help please?

Mine does this (new laptop) I ended up turning it off on main button and then restarting it (not sure thats how you are meant to do it but only way I could get anything up on the screen)

Can you repeat the same thing to see if it toggles back into giving you screen?

Take the battery out and put it back in again.

e&H, ST I've done both those. WOA, my life is in your hands. Will I lose anything do you think?

Hold the power key down till the hard disk clicks OFF. Remove the battery. Make sure the laptop is completely silent. Put battery back in. Press the power key for a few seconds. Laptop should power up correctly.

If this doesn't work, turn it upside down and shake. It won't help your laptop but does prove it's not an Etch a Sketch

I've done it a couple of times when laptop has frozen and it has always come on ok.
But I cannot make any promises.

Oh efferty eff I don't have a phillips screwdriver that will undo the screws without wearing down the metal on them. Will it have the same effect if I just let the battery wear down?

We don't need a screw driver for ours.

Well thank God I didn't pursue it with the screwdriver then! I held down the on/off switch (for some considerable time, I hasten to add) and it came back on again. Took me a while to get the internet working again as I'd pressed every f key on the keyboard to get it working

Thanks so much for all your help.

Where the eff is the battery then?

What brand of laptop - if's probably underneath, mine has a screwdriver type slot which you can turn with your finger to extract the battery. The bit you unscrew is the hard disk (don't do it)

Compaq

Could have been worse, she could have tried to open it with a metal spoon and static shocked both herself and her data ss

The thing you need a screwdriver to take out it probably the hard disk drive. The battery should be removable just by sliding a catch, or possibly two catches.