Despite Jason's fears, this is actually a fairly easy problem to fix, but I'm guessing the thought of it would be intimidating to anyone without IT experience, especially when all your hard work that you forgot to back up could potentially be lost. That must be why I'm the IT guy and he's not.
What I would do first, since I already know he didn't back up any of his files, is find out if he has all of the application software CD's and software documentation. This will make things a lot easier for Jason and keep him out of the hot water with his boss he'd get in if he had to use the company credit card to purchase all new software.
Since his OS is completely corrupted and there's no way I can click on My Computer to get to the installation CD, or do anything in Windows for that matter, I will have to set up his computer to boot from the D-drive, or whatever the name of his CD/DVD drive is. To set this up I will have to access the Boot Menu, which can be accessed by pressing F12 during the computer’s start-up. From there I will be able to boot from the D-drive and start the reinstallation of Windows XP.
There are several installation options, but the one I'll choose is to do a clean installation on top of the existing installation. This option will overwrite all of the previous OS's system settings and applications while keeping the data on the drive, so none of Jason's files will be lost.
After the reinstallation is complete, I can help him reinstall all of his application software.
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