We turned off the computer then when the computer was turned back on, there was no power, no lights.  However the monitor does come on.

Not running XP, system very old  Purchaed approximately 1993. Second to getting the system up and running, my main concern is the data on the disc (word perfect) and cannot be transferred to my new computer. 

System is dos as I had not ever planned to go on internet with it and have a new computer for that.

Some material on the a drive and some on the c drive of the "off" computer is vital to me.

SUPERGEEKS ANSWER:

A command prompt (DOS) environment can be achieved with a Windows XP computer by creating a Boot Floppy.

Here is how:

Creating a Windows XP boot disk (MS-DOS bootable diskette)

When formatting a floppy diskette, users have the option of creating a MS-DOS startup disk, follow the below steps to do this.

1.      Place diskette in the computer.

2.      Open My Computer, right click the A: drive and click Format.

3.      In the Format window, check Create an MS-DOS startup disk.

4.      Click Start

Now reboot the computer and boot off of the XP boot disk you have just created.