sallyhaines,
How are you accessing your Hotmail account? Are you using Internet Explorer and logging onto the web-based hotmail interface? Are you using Outlook or Outlook Express to access your hotmail account?
If you're using Outlook or Outlook express, you've probably not configured it correctly to access a Hotmail account. I don't believe Microsoft offers hotmail account access via Outlook or Outlook express on their old "free" hotmail accounts anymore. You need a "paid" MSN or Live account in order to use Outlook as your email program.
If you have a free hotmail account, log into your email at:
www.hotmail.com
This should allow you access to your hotmail account provided the account is not disabled. If you're not getting mail via the web-based login, you may have a FULL mailbox. In this case, you'll need to clean out your mailbox as the free hotmail accounts have limited storage available.
- John