Jeanie G. Thanks for your concern, my computer is apparently shot. However, with a device from Radio Shack one can pull out the hard drive and attach it via usb to another computer and work as an external drive. Live and learn. There are also things called Flash drive or Thumb drive that a lot of people are saving all their stuff to rather than the C drive, then if there is a problem, the flash drive or thumb drive can be inserted into any computer. I guess I am behind the times and I have been saving everything to the C drive. So I am going to get a different tower and a flash drive to prevent the same thing from happening. It may be the off on switch, but my son says more than likely it is a virus. Even though I have virus protection they can't keep up with them.