computer crash?

My son shut off his computer and when he tried to get on the next day, it had a box come up and said there was an error and he cannot get back in, even to his desktop screen to Quick restore. The Dell company wants to charge him 100.oo to tell him what to do. He has a Reinstallation cd for XP that came with the computer. If he puts that in, will it bring up his desktop long enough to Quick restore , or will that help any at all? There are driver cds, etc in his box that came with the computer. We just arent sure what to do. Can anyone help? Thanks so much!

 

Don't know if this will work with but Dell but give it a go>

To start your computer by using the Last Known Good Configuration feature, follow these steps:
1. Start your computer.
2. When you see the "Please select the operating system to start" message, press the F8 key.
3. When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, use the ARROW keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked), and then press ENTER.
4. If you are running other operating systems on your computer, use the ARROW keys to select Microsoft Windows XP, and then press ENTER.

 

Got it fixed, thanks to all of you!