this will be vague, as I am basing it on what my mother told me over the phone.  She thought her COMPUTER had been left on, so she hit the switch in the back of the computer to turn it off.  I have no idea what switch it was, but I assume there is only one, and it is a zt desktop computer.  Several hours later, she flipped it again to turn it on, and the computer said there was an error from an improper shutdown.  She started it is safe mode, and after a couple hours, it said something like "system restored to 5/28/08"  but that is all, the screen just went blank after that.  She tried powering it down and restarting, and she gets the same error message.  She started it in safe mode again, and the screen goes blue, which I assume means that windows is starting up, but that is it, just a blue screen with a cursor and nothing else.  Any IDEAS as to what to do?  I know this is not much to go on, but I have never seen the computer, so if you have a zt maybe you can figure out what switch she hit and what she did to the computer.IF it's a desktop computer, she may've turned off the on/off switch which governs most power supply units (PSU's). 

This should not have been a big deal.  Windows should've been able to recover from an improper shutdown.  I'm not saying that's the way you want to power down all the time, but it seems like the odds were against her on this one.ok, this was not the power button on the front of the tower, this was a switch on the back.  Apparently, it said I and O and she flipped it and then flipped it back(which one should it be on?).  We try starting windows in safe mode and we just get a blue screen with an arrow.  Nothing seems to work, any more ideas?
  Yes, that's the one I mean.  The graphic is I and 0, but it's meant to be like a 1 (for "on") and 0 (for "off).  If it's off, it cuts power from the power supply to the rest of the computer, so it must be on for the computer to run. 

Don't FEEL bad for asking.  I once "fixed" someone's computer by showing them this switch.  The system wouldn't turn on with the front panel button, because someone accidentally turned off the power supply.thanks,
   so if that is just the power button, then why is the screen just going blue?  is it "fried?"I wonder if Windows "corrupted" itself when the power got turned off accidentally?  I'm surprised the system restore didn't work, but I've known from others that system restore isn't always a guarantee to work.Try and get in front of that machine or have her sign up so we can diagnose further.
It sounds like it's stuck in the improper shutdown loop...
One thing that may work is to unplig the PSU from the power source.
Flip that switch back and forth a few times and do the same with the front panel switch.
Put the back SIDE (PSU ) switch in the down or -O- position and plug it in.
Flip the switch to the -I- position and see if it boots properly...ok, I got in front of the computer.  I did what you said about flipping the switch and unplugging it.  The computer goes to the "improper shutdown, start in safe mode, options, etc" screen.  I hit 1 to start in safe mode.  Then, the computer starts loading drivers, and gets to one that says something like crcdisk.(something) and then the screen just goes black.  It is not going blue and it is not in Windows, it is just black with an arrow on the screen, that does move with the mouse.
    Any ideas?  Maybe boot with the xp disk and do a repair of windows?