acer: boot ini error: need help !

my brother inlaw has a acer desk top that only came with the acer cd . and now when he tries to start the computer all that happens is that the acer emblem comes up than an error of "boot ini error". so we loaded the acer cd and we still only get the same thing that shows up. and i do not have a vista program cd. but i do have an xp cd and tried loading that in hopes to get to the recovery part. and all i get is a message saying something about i need a vista program. but we can get to a screen to use dos.
i do not have a seperate boot disk !
can any one help explaining how i might get his computer running without going to acer and buying their expensive phone time or thei recovery cd. and keep in mind that i only have limited knoledge and an xp disk and the acer cd.

 

Here is a link to a Vista recovery CD that may help. I've never had to use it but it is reputable. It appears it is only a torrent download so you will need a torrent client like utorrent.com to download the file. After you get the full file it must be burned to CD using as an image using a program like imgburn.

If you need help with utorrent or burning the completed download, I'll try to help.