b2bail

thanks for reading and poss ur help in advance.

breif intro ::: right i live in the uk and aam trying to sort this problem to no avail, my mom owns a american compaq presario v5000(all says on bottom)which my sis/brother in law got her as they live in texas an she visits quite often,with the idea that email im's are cheaper than phone calls.
Everything worked well she got aol wireless and happy she was,then for some reason it would not connect wirelessly i tryed to sort that over the phone for her but as i drive for a dutch firm a bit hard as not there.
So she tryed a recovery from the dicks that my b/inlaw did for her which made a lot worse as now will not boot says ntldr is missig, i have checked the h/drive in bios for faults but says ok,also tryed to reboot from the xp disk(which is mine) loads fine but then says no hd detectable so a bit lost. as i am not a wizz on these things an only know basics can any1 help thanks again 4 ur time b2