Laptop Problems

For my Daughter's 10th birthday I got her a little netbook. It was of course a major hit. She was thrilled. But now, it's a less than 2 months later and it is no longer working. I didn't buy the most expensive netbook I could find, I bought an Acer Aspire. I had never heard of the brand before, I am more of an HP gal myself, but it was a cute little thing and not terribly expensive, so I bought it. Now, I'm not so sure that was the right choice.

When she turns the computer on it will activly start booting up but then the screen goes black and it's done. It will do the same thing over and over again. I have had my tower do the same thing to me in the past and I solved the problem by pressing F8 and returning it to a state in the past, before it forgot what it was supposed to do. But her's wont give me that option. She could have a virus but I have no way of even running a scan to find out because I can't get as far as the desktop!

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to fix this for her?