Your friend's computer has been restored, but following that restoration the computer is supposed to boot to a utility in the first partition that leads through the registration process. For some reason this has gotten "stuck" and is refusing to boot.
The only way I know to correct this is to use a partition editor to mark the second partition active. More information on how the Dell Restore partition works can be found in Dan Goodell's treatise found here: Inside the Dell PC Restore Partition. It's very comprehensive, so you may need to dig a bit to learn how the partitions get set, but the only other thing you can do is a clean installation of the operating system and any applications that are needed.
