Laptop's screen not working - help!

[OllieWollieWoo]

Was on the laptop last night and screen suddenly went blank. Rebooted as its prone to crashing (esp since the new Windows Vista has been put on - grrrrr) but same thing happened - no screen! Can hear that emails etc are being recieved by the pinging noise but can't figure out how to get the screen back! Have I just pressed a wrong button which has switched it off (cant see one for the screen!) or is there something wrong with it??? (Its a HP laptop by the way). Mobile phone not working for a week either due to be covered in orange juice so I'm not have a good time techinically speaking!!!

have you tried turning the brightness up?
its usually on one of the function buttons at the top

There an f key with a sun symbol and an arrow - do i just press that on its on or do I have to press it in combination with another key to get the f key to work - sorry for being such a ditz!

try both!

theres usually a function key (or fn key) which you can hold at the same time as another key to use the second function)