Next best place to ask. Computer Troubles

Alright, so, I have an older computer, bout 3 years old. The computer itself isn't that bad, but its got one huge problem. It destroys every operating system I put on it.

I had a copy of windows 7 on it, and it just stopped working, the activation key just got deleted by a random update it seems. So I tried to get ubuntu on it, which worked fine at first. I restart my computer, and bam, ubuntu is now fully text based, and not working at all. I delete it, and a friend gives me a version of win7, and i retried it. However, it did the same thing as ubuntu, and destroyed it after I tried restarting my computer to install the updates. I've tried both operating systems multiple times, but got nothing each time, just the same operating system corruption.

Does anyone know what happened to my computer, or how to fix it?

That sounds REALLY bad. I'd go find a technician if you can afford it, or call customer support if that's still available to you.

My friend says he might be able to help me, but thats the best technician I got that I can afford. I'm utterly broke.