I downloaded Skype and messed up my mini laptop, can anyone help me?

What error message does it display when you try to boot?

None, it just freezes and doesnt boot.

Strange. If it has a corrupted boot sector, that’s likely a hard drive failure and not something to do with Skype or your email client. Any new program install requires registry entries so XP can manage its default file locations. It’s likely a write error occurred in that process, and that usually indicates failing drive media. In that case, the mini is toast. Get a new machine. Data files on the hard drive may be recoverable if you mount it in another machine, and run chkdsk on the drive with /r to recover all readable data.

Having just been through an XP crash, I wish you the best.

So, can a repair person test the hard drive and show that the drive is bad?

I don’t know how Skype might have cause the problem but you might try starting your computer in safe mode and finding a restore point prior to when you installed Skype.

You can talk to someone. Be sure to get firm numbers on proce, because any effort at data recovery from corrupted drives gets expensive fast.

My guess is it’s got either a mechanical failure or media degradation in the boot sector. There is nothing an ordinary install of a new program would do that might cause corruption of a file so critical that the OS can’t even display an error message on boot up.

I am familiar with those Acers I had one myself. I had a similar issue with Windows crapping out on me. Why do you think I installed Linux on it?

As for testing the drive, there is a way to do that with a USB stick with the right tools on it; I favor PartedMagic.