Upgrading and computer crashed

[frozen1]

I was updating Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.1 online and there were some problems loading parts of the program. Anyway my computer is dead.
I have tried Hiren start up disk and tried Reinstallinig Ubuntu from a start up disk but my computer won't read the drives. The keyboard doesn't work, the monitor has no signal, the cd/dvd drive light blinks but will not load the start up disks. The power light is on and the HD light is orange. Any suggestions on where to start?

[ajgreeny]

Unfortunately this sounds very like a catastrophic hardware fault of some sort, and quite where to start I will have to leave to someone else. However when you say your computer won't read the drives, which drives do you mean? If it is just the CD/DVD drive, it may be simply a case of replacing that. If the drive went awol while upgrading, that could be why you have an unbootable system at this point, and there should be no reason other than hardware failure for the CD drive not to boot assuming the motherboard has not also done the dirty on you.