my power button switch is not working. Is there anything I can do ( without a technicians help?)? I mean, I've had troubles with my pc before.

It all started when one of my friends wanted to connect her laptop to my printer.. well i don't know what she did but when I came home my pc wasn't working anymore. It kept on making beeping noises and windows didn't LOAD. I sought help online from some computer help forums and they all said that 1) HARDWARE failure 2) dislodge ram or VIDEO card 3) I had to reformatt? windows witha boot disk or something.. to cut the story short they weren't very helpful( from a beginners pov).

so anyway, after reading very useful info from this site, I realized that my prob could be a keyboard related issue. after fixing that my pc started working ( and I was extremly happy because I was PLANNING to retrieve some important files just incase my pc goes crazy again) until I decided to reconnect dsl to my pc.. after doing that it started making beeping noises again and the monitor had "keyboard error" on it. so when I pushed the power button to turn if off , that's when I heard a crack.. and now... i believe the power button is BROKEN..or i shocked my pc ?.. the point is, I can't even turn it on . any suggestions? or am I screwed?

btw i am not a native english speaker so pls pardon grammar and lengthy explaination.i forgot, i have windows xp home edition , compaq presario 6420nx, 80gb harddrive 256MB memory, amd athlon xp processor 2200+ operating at 1.8 GHz. you will get more attention from hardware orientated people if you post this under the "computer hardware" forum.