Blue Screen Blues

My brother in law just got his new computer and i guess his not so smart neighbor thought windows wasn't installed and tried the recovery disk and messed it up. He's opposite side of country from me so here's his email he sent me:
Big trouble with my computer, screen all
blue with the following message " a problem has been detected and
windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer. If this is the first time
you have seen this stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps.
Check
for viruses on your computer remove
any newly installed hard drive or hard
drive controllers. Check your hard drive
to make sure it is properly configured
and terminated. Run CHKDSK / F to
check for hard drive corruption, and
then restart your computer.
Technical information: ( OXOOOOOO7B,
OXF898563C, OXCOOOOO34, OXOOOOOOOO, OXOOOOOOOO ) ".
Every time I shut down my computer
and restart it this comer on, dont know
what the he-- they are talking about I can't get off this page."


Now the screen is blue with that and he can't get anywhere. How would i get him to get to start and maybe restore as such? Thanks for any info. It's an XP home edition

 

Would a recovery disk be the way to go and does he have to set bios to boot from cd first to get it going? Also does he have to start clean or can he put in recovery disk the way it is and try? He's waiting on tech support if they ever call.