Major Problem!! Startup Repair failed and System Restore failed!!

I have a 3 month old Inspiron 1501 which was working perfectly fine until last night. My sister was online when the system froze. Tried "control, alt, delete" several times and nothing happened. I told her to press and hold the power button to force the computer to shutdown. When she started the computer back up, the Startup Repair began but it stated it "cannot repair" the problem. There was a link to alternate options so I clicked it and it brought up a screen with several options including "System Restore". I chose that since I was somewhat familiar with what it does. I tried it several times using different restore points but it failed "system cannot find the path specified".  What should I do now?????:smileysad: :smileysad: :smileysad: