Did Ubuntu 9.04 kill my wife's laptop?

Can you describe your hardware plz!
It will be better if you give us a web link of the laptop.
Thx

will the lights turn on? and is=f so do you have access to BIOS?

oops spelling error.... will the lights turn on? and if so do you have access to BIOS?

if you do have access to BIOS try and reinstall ubuntu 9.04 or even Ubuntu 8.10 by CD install... if this doesent work i recommend reinstalling windows xp and then trying Ubuntu 9.04

Try reinstalling 9.04 with the daily built iso. If you can use the entire disk for installation (attention, you will lose any data on your hard disk!).
You can download the daily built iso from there:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

It may be stuck at some point in the boot process
could you try to hit CTRL-ALT-F1 after some time in the boot process
is there any text there ? (if not , also try CTRL-ALT-F2 up to CTRL-ALT-F6)

Also, at boot you may have the choice (in the grub menu) between several kernel versions, have you tried booting with an older version

May I suggest that, from another computer, you download and burn to a CD-R Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN); this is found on SourceForge (you can just Google DBAN and the first item which is displayed is the one you want).

Note carefully: this is an extremely dangerous program. If you boot from this CD-R, you will completely wipe a computer's hard drive irretrievably. Of course, in this case, that's exactly what you want to do. (After you're done with DBAN, put the disk away in a safe place so it will not be used by accident.)

To boot from this DBAN disk, first turn on your wife's computer and, at the prompt, go into the BIOS and set the first boot to CD drive. Then, with the DBAN disk in your CD/DVD drive, restart the computer and follow the simple instructions shown. (You will want to type "autonuke" as instructed there which is the basic operating command; this is satisfactory for the majority of users.) Then let the program do its thing. (On my own laptop, an Acer Extensa 5660-6419 with a 160 GB hard drive, a complete wipe takes about five hours; I have let the program wipe my computer overnight. The length of time the wipe will take you depends solely on the size of your computer's hard drive.)

Then carefully install Ubuntu. Frankly, as the new "official" release is only a couple of days away, I should wait and download the "official" disk and use that to install to the computer. (Download it from another computer and burn it to CD-R just as you did with the DBAN.)

I believe that you will not have any trouble with a Ubuntu installation if you "wipe" your computer's hard drive first.

Best of luck.